


Every Land

by Circadienne



Category: Historical Fiction, Lewis and Clark, RPF - American Frontier
Genre: Multi, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2007, recipient:Dizmo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-09
Updated: 2010-01-09
Packaged: 2017-10-06 01:31:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/48259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Circadienne/pseuds/Circadienne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>With many thanks to Amy, Cofax, and C., who put up with a lot while I was writing this.  Remaining mammoths and/or historiographical errors are my fault, not theirs.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Every Land

**Author's Note:**

> With many thanks to Amy, Cofax, and C., who put up with a lot while I was writing this. Remaining mammoths and/or historiographical errors are my fault, not theirs.

_Omne solum forti patria est, ut piscibus aequor, ut volucri vacuo quicquid in orbe patet._

Every land is a homeland for the courageous man, as water is a homeland for the fish, as everything that lies open in the airy circle of the sky is a homeland for the bird.

\-- Ovid, Fasti I: 493-4

 

_Fort Greenville, Northwest Territory: November 28, 1795_

It was the end of a dismal rainy afternoon, the sort of day where it was impossible to be warm. And his head-cold surely didn't help. It was a miserable thing; Clark had contracted it on the ride back from New Madrid, and he supposed he was getting past the worst of it. He had gotten out of bed this morning, at any rate, though that was largely because he had read all his newspapers and he wasn't prepared to spend another day staring at the ceiling. Might as well busy himself with paperwork. He sniffed, and then that itchy feeling overtook him and he raised his handkerchief, catching a gigantic sneeze that left him feeling as though his face had tried to invert itself. Wretched illness.

The door banged open, letting in a gust of cold air and a tall figure in an Army coat and cocked hat who stooped to enter through the low doorway. He removed his hat, shook the rain off it, and only then looked to Clark, sitting behind the paperwork-covered table that nearly filled the little farmhouse parlor. "Captain Clark?"

Clark, rising, nodded blearily.

"I'm Subaltern Lewis." He reached into the breast pocket of his coat and pulled out a folded paper. "General Wayne spoke to you about me?"

Clark sighed. "No, he did not. But I've heard of you." This was, unquestionably, the same Lewis who'd recently spent a week in front of a court-martial. It had been rather spectacular: the man had gotten drunk, called his lieutenant 'almost as great an ass as Alexander Hamilton' -- a poorly-received remark, in the largely-Federalist officer corps of the Second Sub-Legion -- and challenged him to a duel.

Lewis had, at least, the good grace to blush as he passed his orders over. Clark broke the wax and unfolded the paper. "Ah. Very good. I am sent one partisan, insubordinate subaltern. Exactly the sort of man I need for a sharpshooting corps."

The younger man's blush deepened and his eyes dropped, but he added, "Don't forget drunken. And hotheaded. Sir."

Clark tried to take a deep breath and found himself coughing instead. "I see everything I've heard is true. Excellent! God knows, this is why I joined up. Preserve the nation by taking her prime idiots west and seeing how many of them I can arrange to have shot. Preferably by Indians, but failing that, any member of the officers' corps will do." The next sneeze caught him by surprise, halfway back into his chair, and threw him into a coughing fit. Lewis obligingly stepped over and pounded him on the back. Clark caught his breath, wiped his nose, and glared up at the other man, who shrugged, gave him a little half-smile, and returned to the other side of the table.

"I'm not completely useless, sir. And I'm a tolerably good shot. When I'm sober. Drunk, I make no guarantees."

Clark swiped at his nose one more time and left his filthy kerchief on the table. "And have you contemplated sobriety, Lewis?"

Lewis pulled a chair toward himself, ignoring Clark's prerogatives, and dropped into it. "Indeed, I have just this week sworn a vow of sobriety, which I will strive to uphold at all times while under your command."

"Oh?"

"Yes. I've decided I'm not drinking with Federalists any more."

Clark couldn't keep the smile off his face. "That's a good one."

"Oh, I think so."

"You will be relieved to hear, then," Clark told him, opening the chest beside his worktable and retrieving a bottle and a couple of glasses, "that I am also, as I strongly suspect you are aware, a Jeffersonian. And I am inclined -- " he splashed a couple of fingers of whiskey into each glass, "I am inclined to consider Alexander Hamilton one of the greatest horse's asses who has ever walked this earth. His stupidity is surpassed only by that of his great proponent, Lieutenant Eliott, and that gigantic turd General Wayne."

"Now, now, General Wayne has acquitted me, I'll hear no ill of him."

Clark handed him a glass. "If you make a habit of drinking my whiskey, you'll hear quite a lot of ill of him. I must apologize for my tone, Lewis, it's this cold. Puts me in a hideous mood. And you should see the men Wayne's been sending me. I'm telling you, you're the cream of the lot, court-martial and all." He took a long swallow. The liquor burned its way down his throat and settled warmly in his belly, and he sighed a bit as he leaned back in his chair.

"I'm usually the cream of the lot." The quiet arrogance of it was surprising. Clark gave the man a long look. Lewis, meeting his eyes, downed the remainder of his whiskey, set his glass on the table, and grinned at him.

 

_The Bitterroot Mountains, in the Lands of the Shoshone: July 7, 1800_

 

Sacagawea loosened the second peg and slowly lifted the bottom edge of the lodge-hides. It would be hours before it was dark enough to move with any hope of not being seen, but she couldn't stay where she was. Her best chance was to sneak out the back of her family's lodge. The Hidatsa were going from lodge to lodge, deciding what was worth stealing and burning the rest. They were two lodges over, and she could hear them going through her aunt's belongings, asking her cousin Six Horses where the good things were.

There were no good things any more, of course. This was not the first raid. She could hear Six Horses weeping, and the men yelling, and then Six Horses made a loud cry and there was another noise, unmistakable, awful, and Six Horses was crying harder and one of the men shouted again and slapped her and she gasped and was quiet.

They might be busy, if they were doing that thing, they might be too busy to hear her if she ran. Sacagawea, heart pounding, glanced from side to side through the little slot between the hides and the ground, then, seeing no one, pushed herself through the gap and went as fast and hard as she could. If she could get across the creek she'd be safe, she'd be under the trees and she could go up the trail through the high pass to the meadow where she knew her brothers and her aunt would be waiting. If she could just get to the creek she would be safe.

The shout behind her drove her faster. She glanced back over her shoulder and saw one of the Hidatsa men, his skin striped black and ochre with war paint, calling to his companions. He waved an arm toward her and she knew he'd seen her. She was out in the grassy meadow where they'd pastured the ponies, and there was no cover until she got to the creek bank.

She put her head down and ran hard, hoping she had enough of a lead that she could get over the creek and up the hill before they caught up. She was a strong runner, had come in second in the girls' race -- and then she heard the sound of hooves behind her and looked back in horror to see that one of them was still mounted, that he'd brought his pony around at the first man's shout and was galloping toward her. Gaining on her. There was no way to get away from him but she tried, she tried, panic driving her feet.

The blow on her back stunned her, knocked her spinning onto the ground, and she landed hard, unable to keep herself from crying out. She pushed up onto her knees, blinking at the pain, and tried to get her feet under her.

The mounted man wheeled his horse in front of her and she realized that he had a musket, one of the new English ones, trained on her. That must have been the butt of the gun, that he'd hit her with. She didn't know, she really didn't, if he'd be able to hit her if he shot from up on the horse. At this range, maybe he could. If the horse were steady, and his aim were good. The horse stood stock-still and the rider stared at her, face impassive.

She ran, and he shot her, or she stayed here, and he took her prisoner. Maybe. Or he shot her, no matter what she did. Or he -- and then he -- there was no way to know.

She took a deep breath and held still. She was younger than Six Horses; maybe they wouldn't. And better to be alive.

The Hidatsa slung his gun across his back, got down off the pony, dropping its reins, and drew out a knife. It was dirty, and she didn't like to think with what. She whimpered a little as he came toward her. He stuck a hand into her hair and jerked her up, grabbing one of her wrists and twisting it around behind her back, taking the knife in his teeth while he pulled her other arm back to join it and tied her wrists with a thong.

He pushed her forward and chucked to his pony. It shambled behind them as the Hidatsa took her back to her people's camp, hooves thocking rhythmically in the low grass. The wind was blowing toward them, carrying smoke and ash, and she choked on it, realizing as she coughed that she was weeping. It stank, the air stank, of soot, and blood, and ugliness.

She saw, looking around the camp as the Hidatsa shoved her between two of the still-standing lodges, that they'd killed her cousin, and her uncle Red Hawk, and she thought that was Otter, the Salish girl her paternal uncle had married. It was hard to tell. The body was face-down under a fir tree and she couldn't see the face, but those were Otter's moccasins with the red-and-white beadwork, bright diamonds and triangles still shiny though the feet within them were still.

The warrior took Sacagawea's arm and pulled her toward her aunt's lodge, drawing up the flap and shoving her in. She stumbled, tried to catch herself, and fell to her knees, toppling onto Six Horses, who lay curled on a buffalo robe in front of the door.

"Eyah, you stupid," Six Horses snapped at her, rolling away.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Sacagawea gasped, "I'm so sorry, I'm so -- "

Six Horses gave her a fierce look. "Sorry for what?"

Sacagawea gulped. "Nothing. Nothing. I -- nothing." She levered herself up into a sitting position, tied hands making her awkward.

"Quiet, now. I can't hear what they're doing when you're making so much noise," the other girl muttered.

"Do you think they'll come back for us?" Sacagawea whispered.

Six Horses' face was contemptuous. "Of course they will. We're young and strong. They're going to take us back to their village to slave for them."

Sacagawea must have looked stricken, because Six Horses reached out and put an arm around her shoulders, and that wasn't like her at all.

 

_Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: March 6, 1801_

 

The messenger dropped a packet of letters onto Lewis' desk. "Quite a lot for you this time, Captain," he said.

Lewis, not looking up from the pistol he was cleaning, made his thanks and, wrapping an oil-soaked patch around his rod, swabbed out the interior of the barrel. He'd come in late the night before; the road from Detroit was a morass, nothing but water and mud this time of year, and everything he'd had with him was damp, oilcloth wrappers notwithstanding. He'd sheltered his dispatch cases as well as he could, but even now, the sergeant on duty downstairs was spreading papers out on a table in front of the fire.

Lewis reassembled the gun and ran a bit of clean flannel over it. It went to rest on the table before him, lying next to its mate, and he turned to the letters. His rifle was downstairs; he might as well catch up on the news from home before going to get it.

He pulled the correspondence toward him. Two from his mother, one from his brother Reuben, and -- his hand stilled and he stared at the half-familiar writing on the fourth, then opened it.

"The appointment to the Presidency of the U.S. has rendered it necessary for me to have a private secretary," he read, followed by compliments on his knowledge of military and Western affairs and the offer to "make you know &amp; be known to characters of influence." Assurances that he would retain his Army rank and seniority. The rather diffident suggestion that, "If these or any other views which your own reflections may suggest should present the office of my private secretary as worthy of acceptance you will make me happy in accepting it." And the request that he write back immediately, and present himself in Washington as soon as he could obtain General Wilkinson's approval. Under all, the large, firm signature: Th: Jefferson.

Lewis sank down into his chair and re-read the letter. And a third time. It was undeniable: Jefferson was offering him a job. Not just a job, a place in his household. As his private secretary. "Hah!" Lewis said to himself, quietly, and then, "Hah!" louder, and then he was clattering down the stairs, shouting to the sergeant in Wilkinson's office, "Sergeant Jenkins! Sergeant Jenkins! Has the mail gone yet?"

"Yesterday, sir," Jenkins answered. "What is it? Trouble at home?"

Lewis grinned at him. "Nothing of the sort. I've been -- I'm going to -- Oh, Lord. I've been offered a job, Sergeant. And I'm minded to take it."

 

_Washington, D.C.: April 19, 1802_

 

"I'll walk you back," Lewis said, smiling. "It's always hard to navigate in an unfamiliar town after dark, and I'd like to hear more about those lectures on waterfowl you mentioned."

Mahlon Dickerson glanced up. The President's secretary loomed over him in the narrow hallway, an innocuous look on his face. It was late; the President had lingered long in conversation over dinner, quizzing Dickerson about northern politics. New England was never far from Jefferson's mind, given Aaron Burr's showing in the 1800 election.

Dickerson still wasn't sure what Jefferson had promised the Federalists in exchange for the electoral votes that had put him over the top, leaving Burr the vice-presidency. He'd heard some ugly rumors, suggestions he didn't like to credit. Regardless, if there were a challenge to Jefferson's power from within his own party, it would come from the north.

His secretary, obviously aware of Jefferson's concerns about the Vice President, had been quiet but watchful during the discussion, with the air of a man taking copious mental notes. Over their after-dinner port, as the subject had turned to natural philosophy, Lewis had offered some scientific observations he'd made while with the Army on the Ohio. He had a good eye, Dickerson thought, and obviously maintained no small interest in the subject. As did the President, of course. Despite Jefferson's concern with Burr and his Little Band, he was clearly more enthusiastic about discussing recent doings at the Philosophical Society.

And Lewis had been, well, attentive. To him. Inquiring about Dickerson's practice, his family, soliciting his opinion on a bill before the Congress. More than once, Dickerson had caught the other man frankly staring at him. Oh, he'd been pleasant enough, but Dickerson had been increasingly uneasy about his motivations. In another situation, he'd have thought -- but they were in the President's salon, in the company of the chief executive, and -- surely not.

"I would be glad of your company," he said blandly. It wouldn't do to refuse the offer.

Lewis nodded at him. "If you'll just give me a minute, I'll have someone fetch my coat." He signaled to the waiting servant. "I mentioned to the President that I'd be with you, so he won't be concerned if I'm away."

"Ah," Dickerson said, carefully and noncommittally.

The servant reappeared, bearing both their overcoats, and the two men shrugged into them. Lewis took the lantern the servant proffered and, let out into the night, they turned east down Pennsylvania Avenue, toward Dickerson's rooming house. The rain had let up, but the sky was still overcast, and the road was wet and mucky. The lantern-light bounced, swinging in Lewis' hand, enough to let them avoid the worst of it. Or largely avoid -- Dickerson was grateful for his boots.

"So," Dickerson said, keeping his voice light as he stepped over a puddle, "are you really concerned with fowls, or was there some matter you were hoping to discuss with me in private?"

"I would like to hear about the ducks, actually," Lewis replied. "But I expect they can wait."

"Then -- " Dickerson let his voice trail off, waiting. They were quite alone; if Lewis had, or desired, some confidence, this was a fine time for it.

"I have -- I am acquainted," Lewis said, at last, voice stilted, "with Benjamin Furniston. Whom I believe you knew while at the College of New Jersey."

Dickerson took a deep breath, let it out. Not Burr, then, but perhaps more dangerous. "I see." Lewis could have heard quite a lot, depending on how forthcoming Ben had been.

"I have no -- " Lewis hesitated. "I have no particular expectations. I want to make that perfectly clear." His voice was serious.

Ah. Much was explained. Relieved, Dickerson gave his companion an appraising, if sidelong, look. Lewis was tall and fair and fit and impeccably well-connected. Exactly how he liked them. "You -- your expectations would be -- " How to say it? "Your expectations would be most welcome." Hell, that was an understatement.

"Oh," Lewis said, sounding delighted. "That is very kind."

Dickerson moved closer, touching his shoulder to the other man's as they walked along. "Not at all," he said, truthfully. They walked down the road, brushing against each other. "You must," Dickerson said finally, "you must meet a great many people, working for the President."

Lewis laughed. "I think I know what you're asking, and the answer is no, I do not attempt to seduce all of Jefferson's dinner guests."

Dickerson was taken aback. "I wasn't suggesting that -- "

Lewis looked down at him. "I'm sorry. I am too frank, I think. But I would not want you to think that I am indiscreet, Mr. Dickerson."

"No, no, I appreciate your position. And it's Mahlon. Please."

"Very well. Mahlon. I am -- I know Ben, and he mentioned to me that you were -- " he elided more-or-less gracefully, "and, having met you, I would very much like to continue in your acquaintance," he finished, smiling self-deprecatingly, making it clear that he knew full well what they were discussing. As did Dickerson, of course.

"The sentiment is mutual," Dickerson replied. Oh, this was an unexpected end to the evening. But agreeable. Thoroughly agreeable.

"I am," Lewis said, taking a deep breath, "I am quite eager. Despite what you might think, it has been some time."

"I see." Dickerson found himself walking faster. "I have a private room. With a lock on the door. We should be free of distractions," he said, speaking quickly. Beside him, Lewis made a soft, approving sound. Very quietly, of course. Dickerson reached through the pass-through in his coat pocket and adjusted his trousers. Lewis grinned at the unmistakable motion, and Dickerson glanced over at him and returned the smile, lifting one shoulder. There was no reason not to admit his reaction.

Dickerson opened the gate and walked them around through the yard to the rear entrance of his rooming house. It was the sort of establishment that catered to men who had business with the government, plain but cleanly kept. The back door was unlatched; he'd told his landlady he'd be in late, and she had merely reminded him to close up when he came in. He held the door open for Lewis and secured it behind him. The two men paused and removed their boots, leaving them at the entrance with the lantern, then Dickerson led the way up the stairs.

"Can I offer you a drink?" he said softly, after he'd closed and locked the bedroom door.

Lewis smiled and stepped toward him, taking one hand and tipping his chin up before bringing their mouths together. He was warm, and firm, and demanding. "I don't need anything more to drink," he said, and pushed Dickerson's coat off his shoulders. "I need -- " and then they were kissing again, pulling at one another's clothing, undoing the innumerable buttons of their waistcoats. But silently, as silently as they could manage, not wanting to wake the sleepers who Dickerson knew filled the house.

He pulled his shirt over his head and gasped as Lewis' mouth closed on his shoulder, the side of his neck, and he undid Lewis' breeches with suddenly-clumsy hands and pushed them down, his eyes closing as the other man's teeth nipped at his skin. Lewis pushed him toward the bed and Dickerson sat down on its edge, Lewis folding over him to continue his attention to his neck, Dickerson tipping his head to the side and sighing.

Lewis pulled back and looked into his eyes. "I would like -- would you like -- " he stopped.

Dickerson blinked back at him. "Yes," he managed, voice rough, not caring what he'd agreed to. Lewis laughed again -- he had such a nice manner, Dickerson thought -- and went to his knees. Dickerson scrabbled at his shoulders and pulled his shirt up, and Lewis obligingly raised his arms and let the other man pull it off. There was quite a lot of him, strong and well-muscled, broad-shouldered, and, oh, bold, Dickerson thought, as Lewis tugged his breeches down to his knees, braced one hand on Dickerson's hip, and closed his mouth around Dickerson's cock. That was -- gratifying. He pushed his hand into Lewis' hair, knocking the tidy little ribbon out of it and onto the floor.

Lewis brought his other hand up, palm toward Dickerson's face, and Dickerson licked across it, sucking at the thumb, guessing what the other man wanted. The hand disappeared downward and Dickerson heard the unmistakable wet sound of it closing around Lewis' prick, sliding back and forth. He moaned, and he could feel Lewis' mouth move as he smiled.

"If you -- if you continue," Dickerson said, "I'll finish."

Lewis paused just long enough to look up at him, murmur, "Good," and suck him in again, harder, hand moving from his hip to his groin, closing around him. He moved steadily, rhythmically, and Dickerson clutched at Lewis' head, tugging at his hair as the sensation built up and washed over him. He climaxed, struggling to keep from shouting.

He fell back onto the bed, limbs warm and heavy, and was pleased when the other man crawled up, erection bobbing cheerfully in front of him and coming to rest against the hairy skin of Dickerson's thigh as Lewis stretched out, half-covering his body.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled, "I wasn't intending to -- so quickly. You haven't -- "

Lewis smirked at him, his self-satisfaction evident. "I will." He kissed him again, lips and tongue, and Dickerson could taste himself in the other's mouth. Then he leaned back, pushed at Dickerson's shoulder, and said, "Roll over and put your back up against me."

Dickerson, no fool, complied. He was embraced, Lewis' body wrapping around his, Lewis' cock nestled in the crease of his ass. "Are you," Lewis asked softly, nibbling at the side of his neck, "familiar with the Greek method?" Dickerson couldn't control the shiver that went through him, and as he leaned back against Lewis, the other man grasped his hip with one hand and pulled their bodies together, hard, making his meaning absolutely clear.

"There's grease on top of the chest," Dickerson said, tongue thick in his mouth, stirring back to fullness in anticipation.

Lewis made an acknowledging grunt and rose, leaving Dickerson's back cold for a moment. Dickerson rolled to one elbow, watching him rummage through the articles atop the little traveling-chest. He dabbed his fingers in the pot of grease and, turning to hold the other man's eyes with his own, slid his slick hand up and down the length of his prick. Dickerson's gaze dropped to watch the motion and he inhaled sharply. Lewis' smile widened and he stuck his hand back into the grease. "I'll bring you some, then, shall I?" Dickerson nodded.

Lewis climbed back onto the mattress, greased hand held before him, and used his other hand to turn Dickerson back on his side. "Say something if it's too much," he said. Then his fingers found Dickerson's ass and he gently worked a finger inside. He moved it with a practiced, circular motion and Dickerson, exhaling, relaxed himself. Lewis added a second finger, then a third, and then his hand was pumping, slowly, and Dickerson was pushing back against him and Lewis, breathless, said, "Oh, you're ready."

He pulled his fingers out slowly, wiped them on a corner of the sheet, and then his hand wrapped around Dickerson's cock, jacking it slowly back to full erection as he reached down with his other hand and guided his prick in. It was tender, at first, and Dickerson murmured, "Wait, give me a moment," and took a few breaths, nodding when he'd accustomed himself. Lewis pulled his hand back and slid in, incrementally, painstakingly slow, working Dickerson's cock all the while, and Dickerson felt himself open completely. He let out a sigh that ended in a groan, and Lewis' teeth sank into his shoulder, hungrily.

"You are -- this is -- oh, yes," Dickerson managed.

Lewis bit him again. "To your liking?"

Dickerson groaned, then laughed. "I am -- oh, this is not the moment to admit it."

"Admit what?" Lewis asked, punctuating his question with a series of slow, deep thrusts, paired with pulls on Dickerson's cock.

"I haven't -- I didn't get your first name at dinner, and I can't -- oh, I can't call the man who's got his cock in my arsehole 'Mr. Lewis,' and I -- oh, God, yes, there -- I have got to -- " he broke and started laughing softly again, overwhelmed by the intensity of the sensation, "I have got to -- "

"Meriwether," Lewis told him, speeding up just a little.

"Mer -- Mer -- "

"It's my mother's family name. Come on, Mahlon," and the amusement was clear in his voice, "it's only four syllables. Certainly something a well-spoken gentleman like you -- should be -- able -- to manage."

Dickerson buried his face in the pillow and laughed hard and came harder, feeling Lewis' cock swell and pulse in response as he spasmed. Lewis dropped one last kiss on his shoulder before, gasping, he pulled out and rolled onto his back. Dickerson reached over the side of the bed and, taking his shirt, used one sleeve to wipe himself, then passed the garment to Lewis, who did much the same thing. He dropped the soiled thing over the far side of the bed and pulled Dickerson to him, resting his head on his shoulder.

"Meriwether," Dickerson said, experimentally, sounding out each syllable.

"Mm?" Lewis' voice was sleepy.

Dickerson pushed up on one elbow and kissed him again, their mouths soft and sated. "You are -- " he broke off, lacking words. "Will you -- I want you again." And that was, perhaps, the most unexpected thing yet.

"Now? Damn, man." Lewis sounded bemused. "You'll have to give me a few minutes."

Dickerson smiled and shook his head. "No, not right now, but -- come to Philadelphia with me," he asked, impulsively.

Lewis sighed. "I can't. At least not until Congress lets out for the summer. But -- " and he turned to look at Dickerson again, "I will."

Dickerson yawned. "I'll hold you to that." He pulled the blanket up and closed his eyes.

 

_Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: May 14, 1802_

 

"I can't believe I let you talk me into this," he muttered to Dickerson. The ballroom was crowded, stuffy and dim, lit only by a few flickering lamps on the walls and a row of footlights along the front of the low stage. Lewis, pushing his way through the throng to take his seat in the second row, could barely make out the set: a table, cluttered with mysterious apparatus, and a large dark satin banner hanging over the stage with, "Rennie, Master of Magic," embroidered on it in gold and white. For that matter, he could barely make out his chair.

The other man grinned at him as he took the seat to his right. "You'll love it. This fellow gave the Governor a private performance last week, and McKean says he's astonishing."

Lewis raised an eyebrow. "You know how skeptical I am about -- " he waved a hand to indicate his general disdain for the supernatural.

"You're not a true believer?" Dickerson's grin widened. "Why, Mr. Lewis, I would never have guessed."

Lewis rolled his eyes and settled back into his chair, his shoulder and thigh warm where they pressed against Dickerson's. The man had an inordinate fondness for entertainments, balls, dinner parties -- he was out more nights than he was in. It would be easy to think, watching him charm his way through an evening, that Dickerson was the sort of twit who wasn't good for much outside a drawing room. Until, of course, one realized who was in the drawing room with him; until one realized exactly how much work Dickerson got done during the nights he spent with a smile on his face and a drink in his hand.

Lewis felt a little smile on his own face, thinking about it. He'd been studying Dickerson this last week, trying to figure out why the social maneuvering that came so easily to the other man evaded Lewis so completely.

"What is it?" Dickerson asked, peering into his face.

"I'm thinking about you," Lewis told him. No need to explain further.

He was relieved when Dickerson smiled in response, leaning back in his little hard chair and saying, "Do me a favor and look -- slowly, now -- look up in the right-hand box and tell me if you know who that woman with Evans is, because she's surely not his wife."

A little startled, Lewis did as he said. "Nobody I've met, Mahlon. Why, you think he's having an affair?"

Dickerson shushed him. "No, I know he's having an affair. The question is, is he having one affair, or two?"

"Oh," Lewis said, nonplussed.

There was a crash of cymbals and a puff of violet smoke, and a loud voice behind them intoned, "Behold! Fresh from engagements in New York, Boston, and before the crowned heads of Europe!" The stage lights brightened, but not much, and a man in a dark suit and a ludicrous scarlet robe, presumably Rennie, bounded through the smoke.

"He lifts the veil!" came a shout from the empty left side of the stage, and "Journey into the unknown!" from the equally empty right, and Lewis realized that this was the man's act -- that he could, somehow, project his voice. It was surprising, if nothing else, and he gazed up at Rennie's face, trying to see if his lips moved when he was doing it. Another series of small explosions and the conjurer whirled, robe flying out behind him, to seize a pair of flaming torches. "The magnificent Rennie, master of the arts arcane!" cried a third voice, seeming to come from directly over their heads, as Rennie slotted the torches into holders at either side of the stage.

"I hope he doesn't light those curtains," Lewis muttered.

"Hush," Dickerson said. Before them, the magician had swung into his patter, going through a routine where he made voices come from the walls, the torches, and finally, a lapdog nestled into the skirts of a woman in the front row. She certainly looks startled, Lewis thought, but I'd bet she's in on the act.

Rennie called out, "I need a volunteer from the audience!" He strode forward, down the little set of steps at the front of the stage, and seized the shoulder of a man across the aisle from them. "Sir, may I borrow your watch?" The man presented it and Rennie returned to the stage. He took a bright purple silk handkerchief from his sleeve and theatrically wrapped it around the watch. "And now," a voice from behind them cried, "watch as this valuable chronometer is smashed to pieces!"

Rennie, clutching a hammer in one hand and the handkerchief-wrapped watch in the other, laid it on the table and, raising the hammer high over his head, brought it down on the kerchief. They could all hear the crushing sound, and a couple of springs and a little gear fell from the table to the floor. Rennie opened the handkerchief and displayed the bits and pieces of the shattered watch.

"He's palmed it," Lewis whispered in Dickerson's ear.

"I know," Dickerson whispered back, and neither of them were surprised when, returning to the audience, Rennie waved his hands and the lurid kerchief and produced the watch, miraculously unharmed, presenting it to its owner.

"And now," said the magician, turning toward Lewis and Dickerson and fanning a deck of cards toward them, "May I invite one of you gentlemen to pick a card? Any card, any card at all!"

Dickerson elbowed Lewis, who glared at him before stretching his arm out and taking a piece of pasteboard from Rennie's outstretched hand.

"Very good, very good!" Rennie shouted. "Now, look at your card -- that's good, show your friend, too. Now, sir, do you remember your card?" Lewis nodded. It was the jack of diamonds. "Then turn it face down, yes, just so, turn it right down, and -- " He began calling out nonsense words and making passes over the deck in his hand. Lewis kept his hand over the card which lay, face down, on his thigh. Finally, the conjurer looked up, right into Lewis' eyes.

"Tell me, sir, is your card the ten of clubs?"

Lewis shook his head.

"Then, sir, is it the five of diamonds?"

"I'm afraid not," Lewis said, skeptically.

"Then, sir, then I know what your card must be! I am certain! It is," and here the mountebank paused dramatically, "it is the ace of spades!"

Lewis shook his head again.

"Turn the card over, sir," Rennie told him.

Lewis, shrugging, did so -- and was astonished to see the wide, fat blot of the single spade, black at the center of the card. His surprise was echoed in Dickerson's face, and as he passed the card back to the triumphant Rennie, Dickerson leaned in to murmur, "See, I told you this would be good." But he could hear the uncertainty in Dickerson's voice. Lewis shook his head, eyes fixed on the magician. He knew the card hadn't left his hand.

Rennie, onstage, was doing more of his voices, the calls coming from all around the room. There was a trick with metal rings, and another where Rennie tore apart his handkerchief, then reassembled it. Finally, he announced that he was thirsty and, taking a large glass of wine, sipped from it, then threw the glass into the air. Rather than smashing on the floor, the glass disappeared, to the happy gasps of his audience.

The magician took his bows, making paper flowers appear from his sleeves and throwing them to ladies in the audience, before vanishing backstage.

Dickerson took his feet as the crowd around them rose, tapping Lewis' shoulder and motioning him to rise. The pair jostled their way out of the ballroom, emerging onto the dark street. Lewis, staying well clear of the carriages that were collecting the theatergoers, took a moment to button his coat before turning to Dickerson. "Are we done for tonight, then?"

"Oh, I think so," Dickerson answered. "Unless you'd like to -- " Lewis shook his head.

They left the crowd behind them as they walked back to Dickerson's house, the streets growing slowly quieter as they made their way homeward. The night was clear and dry, lit by a fat moon waxing toward full and a few street lights and uncurtained windows. It was late enough that most of the city's inhabitants were abed, and the two men didn't speak, keeping silent as the night around them. From a distance, Lewis thought, we look like any two friends, we look perfectly innocent. There is no distinguishing. They walked closely, but not so closely as to appear exceptional, Lewis in his Army coat, his hat pushed low on the back of his head, and Dickerson in something newer and more stylishly cut. He glanced down at Dickerson's shoulder, at his ear, dark hair curling a little over it, at the curve of the back of his neck, and sighed a little, and told himself to be still.

The housekeeper had left a lamp burning for them on the front hall table, and Dickerson took it up as Lewis closed and latched the front door. They made their way back to Dickerson's study, where Lewis collapsed onto the settee and loosened his neckcloth.

"That business with the card I can't figure. That was -- novel," Dickerson said finally.

Lewis nodded. "Fooled me, I'll admit."

"Hah. You, deceived?"

"It's just like Washington!" Lewis laughed. "I try to get away from my work, but -- "

"Well, next week, I promise, we're off to Dr. Logan's. Not that he won't talk politics, but I expect he's still fixated on the French and you can plead ignorance. And then I'll ask him about agricultural products of the Atlantic states, and there's the rest of the evening taken care of."

Lewis hummed noncommittally, laid his neckcloth on the settee, and began pulling at the lapels of his coat.

"Here, let me get that for you." Dickerson reached for his collar, and Lewis obediently turned his back, letting the other man remove his garment with the ease of a man who'd spent his life being dressed and undressed by his servants. Dickerson's were all abed, of course; he'd told them to turn in, and they knew better than to disturb him when he was closeted with Mr. Lewis. Mr. Lewis was, as Dickerson so diplomatically put it, a particular friend.

Lewis shook his head. A deception set atop deceptions, no better or worse than any other. He recalled his last words with Jefferson before his departure and frowned.

"What is it?" Dickerson asked.

Lewis considered for a moment, then answered, "I'm thinking on this business with Callender. Says he'll reveal that Jefferson's been having an affaire de coeur with Black Sally."

"He's had more than that -- half his children are Negroes, and everyone with any sense knows it. Besides, Jefferson's a Virginian. If you planters didn't have affairs with your slaves, you'd have to have them with -- "

"Lawyers?" Lewis cut in wryly. "Indeed. Well, there's a difference between knowing it and knowing it. And this madman showed up in my office at the President's House the morning before I came up here and began howling about degeneracy in our nation's capitol."

Dickerson laughed. "To you?"

"I know. I was exceedingly diplomatic." He bent to his own shoes, undid the buckles and toed them off. "Still, if you come down to Washington before the expedition departs -- "

"I don't plan to," Dickerson said, briskly. "I've got a lot of work keeping me here, as you well know." He looked over at Lewis, then his mouth twisted and he added, ruefully, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that to sound as it did."

"I do understand." He undid his waistcoat buttons, not meeting the other man's eyes.

"Forgive me," Dickerson's voice was low, "but I have to ask. Don't you think your services are better-used in Washington? Or here? Jefferson can find someone else for this business."

"No, I'm -- " Lewis considered how to explain. "Mahlon, it's a prize, this expedition. It's a tremendous prize." And a prize he wanted desperately. He wanted to be out of Washington, in the open air, in the West. Wanted to see what the untouched heart of the continent held. Wanted to match himself against it. None of which, he thought, would be comprehensible to Dickerson.

There was a long, still moment, and then Dickerson turned toward him and said, quietly, "I know. I know. I am sorry, I shouldn't have spoken."

"It's quite all right."

"Will you come to bed?" He heard the hesitation in Dickerson's voice, and wondered at it.

"I -- yes, of course." Lewis leaned over, blew out the lamp on the table next to him, and let himself be led away.

 

_Clarksville, Indiana: July 18, 1803_

 

The morning sun shone in through the unshuttered windows of the little house's front room, making bright squares on the cloth that covered the dining table where William Clark sat mopping up the remains of his egg with a bit of bread. He'd decided, upon waking, that it was best to give George the news straight out. But, given his reaction, William was reconsidering -- perhaps he should have waited until the man had breakfasted. He lifted the enameled coffee pot and poured his brother a cup, pushing it across the table.

George raised the cup, distractedly, and took a substantial swallow. "You're going to do what, now?" His frown remained fixed on his younger brother.

William finished chewing before answering. "I'm going on an expedition. Jefferson's sending Merry Lewis -- you remember him -- he's sending him up the Missouri River. And he wants me to go along."

George raised his eyebrows. "Why you?"

William shrugged. "We always got on well, when we were in the Army." More than well, really, but that was nothing he'd discuss with his brother. He shifted a little in his seat, remembering -- the two of them, late at night, drinking that dreadful frontier rotgut, Lewis grasping his hand -- well, they had been very young. You did a lot of things when you were young that you couldn't quite believe, down the road. "We've been in touch a few times since then," he said aloud. "I saw him when I was in Washington, and there was that business I did for his brother in Ohio a couple of years ago. Look, you can read his letter for yourself, if you like." He tapped the thick letter that sat next to his plate.

George did read it, silently, while William made his way through two fat slices of ham and a half-cup of coffee. Reaching the end, George flipped back through the sheets, reread a few passages. William toyed with his fork, poking at a bit of gristle, waiting for his brother to finish. At last George set the letter aside, saying, "Well, it's certainly an interesting prospect. Good business opportunity, too, get in on the Indian trade out there. But Lewis -- he served under Wilkinson, didn't he? I've never trusted Wilkinson."

"Yes, and I served under Wayne, who very nearly hanged you," William drawled. "I don't see that it signifies, George."

His elder brother frowned. "You're sure you don't want to take a few days to think it over?"

"I don't think I need to, no," William answered, shortly. "You'll be fine here without me." And they would, of course. He and George had argued more than once, since moving to Point of Rocks; he had expected disagreements, with George so much the elder and accustomed to command besides, but he hardly relished them. It were better for both of them if he absented himself from the household. Besides, he had always enjoyed travel. Lewis' letter, and the opportunity it described so enthusiastically, could not have come at a better time.

"You'll take York?" George said, finally.

William nodded. "And I'll see if I can't recruit some men here in the neighborhood." He stood, pushing his chair back, and said, "I'm going to write him and accept, so Caesar can post the letter this morning. I want to reach Lewis before he leaves, if I can."

 

_On the Ohio River, East of Marietta: September 13, 1803_

 

Lewis was in the bow of the keelboat, scouting ahead for snags, when he saw the gray cloud moving toward them, ragged-edged and uneven over the trees. He frowned up at it. The cloud drew steadily closer and he finally realized it was pigeons, more than he could count, and then the birds were upon them, over and around them. The sound of their wings was tremendous, the soft thrumming of feathers upon feathers and pinions upon air over and over, beat upon beat, becoming thunder by multiplication.

He called out to the rowers, told them to slow, because there were so many birds that it was getting dark -- not full-dark, moonless-night-dark, but the half-dark dimness of an eclipse. He couldn't even imagine how many birds there were. Hundreds of thousands, at the very least. A million? How to even estimate it -- count the number passing a fixed point, then extrapolate to fill the sky? But he wasn't a fixed point. He was one man in the bow of a boat, somewhere in the Ohio River. And how do you figure the cubic volume of the sky?

Lewis tipped his head back, watched the birds pass, winced as their shit splattered his deck, calculated another lost afternoon into his travel plans. And marveled. They came out of the west, out of the north. From where he was going. Had they flown over herds of buffalo, the solitary megalonyx, mountains of salt, the villages of the Mandan and Hidatsa? Over the mouth of the Columbia? Over the Pacific?

It was almost possible to believe that he was truly, finally, underway. He would be in Clarksville in a fortnight, and then -- he realized he was smiling, nearly laughing, at the prospect, at this ludicrous surfeit of birds, at the impossible richness of the land that awaited them, the primeval garden.

 

_Menetarra, in the Lands of the Hidatsa: April 18, 1804_

 

Sacagawea tipped her hoe against the post of the watching platform and climbed the ladder, one hand held out for balance as she put her feet in the notches cut in the log. Six Horses, sitting in the shade of the hide canopy, weaving a new basket, shifted to make room for her on the folded buffalo robe they'd spread over the platform's rough puncheon floor. From here, they could see their garden, keep the birds and horses and little boys out of the plants, sing the growing songs that Stands-like-a-woman had taught them.

It was, Sacagawea thought, a fine garden, considering that neither of them were from a growing people. The corn was in, and the beans were sprouting. Soon they would put in the squashes, and then the sunflowers. They had learned so much about growing, in the years since they'd come to the village, dirty and tired from the long journey across the plains, dumped out in front of Stands-like-a-woman's lodge like sacks of corn meal.

They owed Stands-like-a-woman much. She had worked them hard, and still expected a share of their produce, but she had also taught them the village ways. This field had belonged to one of her mothers, and had lain fallow since the old woman died. When Six Horses had been given to the metis Charbonneau two years before, in exchange for horses and buffalo robes, Stands-like-a-woman and her sisters and daughters had helped them build a new lodge, then suggested they take over the cultivation of this field.

"It looks good," she said to Six Horses, settling onto the robe. "The weeds are not too bad."

The other woman nodded. They sat there quietly, Six Horses turning her basket in her hands, weaving each new strand between the upright spokes.

"I am still bleeding," Six Horses said at last, "so I think you had better go to him tonight." She didn't look up from her work, and her voice was level and firm.

"Oh," Sacagawea said.

"You're old enough."

"You don't think -- "

"I think it is much better for us, being married to one man, than being married to many," Six Horses interrupted. She pulled another rush from her pile and ran it between her fingers. "And it is better if you go willing. Better for all of us."

Sacagawea bowed her head. She had never let herself hope that she might have one of the young men. Not really. She was not Hidatsa. She was not naive. And she had known, since Six Horses lost the baby, that this was coming. She was resigned.

That didn't mean she liked the idea.

 

_On the Missouri, in the Lands of the Iowa: July 30, 1804_

 

"Lewis!" Clark saw the other man, down in the encampment, look up from the badger-skin he was tacking to a board. Clark shouted again and gestured toward himself, making it clear that he wanted the other captain to join him on the bluff.

Lewis waved at the skin and Clark shook his head, no, gestured leave it and come up here. Lewis shrugged, bent to collect his rifle and espontoon, and disappeared into the trees along the riverside. He reappeared a few minutes later, climbing up the bluff munching on an apple, and tossed another to Clark, who caught it one-handed. "They're a little green yet, but still. Quite delightful, this business of wandering through the wilderness, taking our dinners off the trees."

"And the mosquitoes taking their dinners off us. I swear, I've bites the size of half-dollars," Clark groused, but his heart wasn't in his complaint. It was a sweet evening, mosquitoes or no.

"You know, I went to a lecture of Barton's last year, on the number of pernicious insects in the United States. Very well-received," Lewis remarked, speaking around his apple.

"Oh?"

"Yes. We haven't met all of them yet, but we're getting close."

"I expect we'll find pernicious insects heretofore unknown to science," Clark said, slapping at his forearm. "Hah, got him."

Lewis smiled at him. "Good for you."

"Mm. Look over there." Clark gestured to the west. In the time it had taken Lewis to climb up from the river-bottom, the sun had dropped low, tinting the sky pink and red at the horizon, shading up to a deep violet overhead. It was huge, that sky, an impossibly vast dome set down over the land. Clouds towered up before them, miles high, their fantastic contours and depths colored by the setting sun. A flock of little birds wheeled and darted above, snatching their suppers from the masses of mosquitoes that hovered over the riverbanks.

Lewis drew in a breath. "It's glorious, Will." His voice was reverent, and he gave Clark a bright, clear smile, absolutely guileless. It was an expression that invited -- nothing Clark was prepared to think about.

"It wasn't doing that a minute ago," Clark replied, bluntly, and immediately regretted his words. Lewis was quite right, the evening was lovely, and there was no reason not to enjoy it. "It is something, isn't it? But I meant there -- I think it's a herd of deer, but it's hard to tell at this distance, and they don't move like any deer I've ever seen."

Lewis studied the animals as they moved up a hillside a mile or two to the northwest. "No, no, they don't. And much too small for buffalo. Well, I'll tell Drouillard to go have a look in the morning. Too late tonight."

Clark nodded. His gaze lingered on the prospect before them: the slowly darkening sky; the high, deep grass, blowing in slow waves across the plain; the trees that marked the river's course through the valley. He turned away, finally, looking to Lewis. "We had better get back to camp."

"Ah, yes," Lewis said, absently, turning back toward him. "We have responsibilities. And I'd better look in on Floyd again. Still," he remarked, gesturing at the view, "there's nothing like this in the States."

"There is now, thanks to our man Jefferson."

"I beg your pardon," Lewis answered. "You are quite right." He took a final bite of apple and tossed the core into the grass, then turned and started back toward their camp.

"Speaking of herds," said Clark, behind him, planting the butt of his espontoon in the hillside to keep from sliding, "do you really think there are mammoths on the plains?"

Lewis shrugged. "It's not impossible. An attache at the Russian embassy once told me a story about a frozen mammoth, but he hadn't seen it himself. And you know the President's affection for the things."

"It's a little farfetched," Clark told him. "Surely the French, or even the goddamned English, would have noticed mammoth herds."

"The English," Lewis said darkly, "are quite capable of ignoring anything that doesn't suit them. Though you have a point. If there were mammoths out here, the English would have tried to sell one in Canton by now."

 

_Fort Mandan: November 4, 1804_

 

It was a long walk downriver through the snow to the white men's camp, and her feet and ankles were swollen. Six Horses had said she'd had the same thing with her babies, feet twice as big as normal, and passed Sacagawea a larger pair of fur-lined moccasins as she bundled up to go out with their husband. Of course, any sort of problem Sacagawea had with this baby, Six Horses had had before. If I die in childbed, Sacagawea thought, she'll be so disappointed that she didn't get to do it first.

The strangers' camp was shaped strangely, square buildings at its corners and its high timber wall incomplete, gaps open like missing teeth. There were men on the roof, nailing pieces of wood to it, and more men in the center yard, cutting logs, and as she watched a pair of men staggered up from the riverbank with a great basket of clay. It looked like no lodge she'd ever built, and she couldn't imagine they were going to be able to make the mud stick properly to vertical walls like that, especially when the weather was this cold. Well, that was what happened when you let men build a house. White men were different, but they weren't all that different. She smiled to herself at the thought of Charbonneau building anything useful.

He was walking ahead of her, as he always did, and as they came near the camp he shouted out in French to one of the men in the yard. The second metis answered in the same language and Sacagawea recognized him. Drouillard had come around the villages before. She had enough French to understand Charbonneau when he said he wanted to talk to their chiefs. Drouillard nodded, clapped Charbonneau on the shoulder, spared a lewd look for Sacagawea's pregnant belly and made a remark in broken Hidatsa which she decided to ignore, then disappeared into one of the white men's tents, set up in a corner of the yard.

A moment later he gestured them over, and Sacagawea followed Charbonneau inside. There was a little fire in a box in the tent, and the sudden warmth made her sniffle. The white man was pale of hair and face, sitting behind a little table covered with books and papers, and barely spared her a glance before turning his attention to the men.

Charbonneau hadn't explained why they were here, of course, but she and Six Horses thought he was going to ask these men for work, to accompany them on this journey they were taking to the west. The stock of coin he'd brought to the villages with him was dwindling, and he was an indifferent hunter. The women could grow enough food to feed him and themselves, they couldn't grow tobacco, or whiskey, or shot and powder.

Drouillard talked to the white chief, then Charbonneau, and then her husband turned to her and said, "Say-say Snake talk," in his rough Hidatsa. The white chief, behind his table, looked up at her expectantly.

"My hands are cold," she replied in her cradle-tongue, "and my nose is running, and I would like to go back to the lodge and put my feet up." Six Horses would have slapped her for speaking to him so disrespectfully, but Six Horses wasn't here.

Charbonneau didn't understand a word, so he smiled broadly at the white man and spread his hands towards her as if to suggest that she had, rather preposterously, done something praiseworthy. The white man nodded, and then he and Charbonneau started haggling, using the second metis as a translator when the white chief's French failed him. He looked angry, Sacagawea thought, and then he struck the table with his open hand and got up and went through the back of the tent. She heard shouting, the first man and another man calling back to him, and was unsurprised when he came back into the tent with a second man, this one red-haired and tall, who he introduced to her husband as Clark.

This Clark frowned at Charbonneau, then looked her up and down appraisingly and said something to the first white man, who shook his head, looking irritated. She didn't like him staring at her like that; of course, she didn't like the way most men looked at her body now, at her belly and her breasts and her fat ankles. There wasn't much to be done about it, though, so she waited. Finally, Clark met her eyes and asked her something, in English.

She shook her head: she didn't have any English at all, not even greetings. Drouillard spoke to Charbonneau, who turned back to her and said, "He think you not to walk with baby."

She raised her eyebrows at Clark. "I can," she said. She had walked many miles carrying more weight than this baby. And she liked the prospect of going west. Going back to her home country. There might be -- no, better not even to think of any possibilities. Better to concentrate on the here and now. She met Clark's eyes, tried to show, by her expression, that she was strong enough to take what came.

He looked at her and nodded, then turned to the other man. The pair of them conferred, heads together, muttering, then spoke to Drouillard, who said something in French to Charbonneau. Her husband nodded, said, "_Oui, oui, tres bien, m'sieur_" and shook hands with all of them. He made their farewells and they were ushered out of the tent.

"You and Six Horses pack camp, bring here," Charbonneau ordered her as they made their way over the muddy ground of the camp, back to the riverside trail.

"We're moving down here? Why?" The whites weren't supposed go west until spring -- at least, that was the story they'd told in the villages.

"Go live here for to work," he said, and then something in French she didn't understand, and then, "No argue! Tell Six Horses! Pack camp!"

She nodded obediently, turning away so he wouldn't see her frown. He wanted them to leave their comfortable lodge to live in this cold place, full of strangers? She didn't look forward to explaining that to Six Horses.

 

_Fort Mandan: January 5, 1805_

 

"It is a great medicine, I am assured. And we are expected to be in attendance." Lewis leaned against the doorframe of their hut, peering in at Clark, who sat at his table, scratching away in his journal.

"More dancing?" Clark asked, amused.

"Indeed. It is preferatory to the buffalo hunt," Lewis told him, coming in and stooping over the other's writing. "You know, that's not how anyone else spells that," he said, pointing at an errant phrase.

Clark shut the book, nearly catching Lewis' finger, and stood. "I expect," he said, "that it is sufficient."

"I am corrected," Lewis responded, undaunted. "Nevertheless. Will you join me, Captain Clark? Our presence is desired, and we've got to walk up there through the snow, so it's going to take a while. And this is critical, I'm told, to the success of tomorrow's buffalo hunt. Dance now or starve later, is how Charbonneau puts it."

Clark rolled his eyes. "I have told you what I think of that man, have I not?"

"Repeatedly," his partner assured him. "And you have also told me we need his wife to translate with the Shoshone, because Jusseaume still refuses to go with us. So we had better learn to live with the ugly bastard."

"Well." Clark shook his head. "If Sheheke wants us at the dance, I'm not minded to alienate the only real ally we have here. And the men?"

"Already making their way up to the village. As they have for the last two nights." Of course they had, Lewis thought; they were fine, red-blooded men. He looked away from Clark, his mouth twisted in a little self-deprecatory smirk. He would have preferred to stay in, but there were politics to consider.

"Very well." Clark put on his fur cap and his second capote and wrapped a heavy striped wool blanket over his shoulders. Lewis, already dressed for the outdoors, took up the lantern and ushered him outside, and the two of them walked in step to the front gate of Fort Mandan, where they exchanged a few words with the sentry before heading out into the snows.

It was shockingly cold, far below freezing, so cold that just walking into the open air made a man feel tired. But the path was easy going, well-marked by the moccasins of those who had passed before them, packed down hard. It wound down through the trees to the iced-over river, slick and shining in the moonlight as they made their way along it. They stumbled a few times, leaning on each other for balance in the snow, before climbing the bluff to the round earthen lodges of the village.

The drums, insistent over the plains, would have made it obvious where the dance was taking place even had the captains not known the Mandan village well. They made their way between the household lodges to the large open space at the heart of the village. Here were the houses of the most powerful families, the medicine lodge, and various fixtures associated with the native faith. Lewis glanced up at the tall pole that stood before the medicine lodge, its top wrapped in a bundle of fur and feathers and capped with a black-painted wooden head. Sheheke had told him, through Jusseaume, that it represented the spirit of evil. Why they kept it here in the middle of the village hadn't been clear; there were fetish poles like this out on the plains, and Lewis would have thought one would want to put the spirit of evil, in particular, as far away as reasonably possible. Apparently this wasn't the Mandan point of view. It was all rank superstition, of course, but the pole and its weird, grinning burden were still uncanny, even covered in snow. He shook his head and pushed the medicine lodge's buffalo-hide door flap aside.

The entrance to the great lodge was a sort of rectangular tunnel, each end curtained with a hide, the interior dark. Lewis drew back the second hide and blinked at the sudden brightness. The room they entered was large and round, poles supporting its domed roof, a large smoke-hole open to the sky at its center. There was a pair of small fires, one at either side of the door, each burning beside an elaborately decorated buffalo skull, and at the center of the lodge a great fire sparked and cracked. Fetish bundles of fur and feathers hung from the rafters and lodge-poles, over the heads of the crowd that filled the lodge.

Seeing the captains pause at the entrance, Sheheke gestured to them. They crossed the lodge to take seats beside him, behind one of the smaller fires. The dance seemed to have been underway for but a short time. They were sitting in a group which included a number of the elder men of the village, along with the Fort Mandan men who'd elected to attend.

To their right, a row of young men faced the entrance, and behind them there was a line of women, wrapped in painted and beaded buffalo robes. The captains watched as the young men, dressed in buffalo fur and horns, bodies brightly painted, circled the central fire. The dancers moved rhythmically past the seated older men of the tribes and the group from Fort Mandan. Periodically a dancer would stop in front of one of the seated men, bowing to him and presenting him with a pipe.

"I though there was more -- " Clark said in Lewis' ear, breaking off delicately.

"Oh, I do think there is," Lewis replied. Neither was surprised, then, when the women began coming forward, meeting their men and the partners they'd selected from among the older men and the strangers. The strangers, the captains had been assured repeatedly, had great medicine, by virtue of the long distance they'd traveled and the journey they'd endured. Their stamina would be taken up by any man whose wife partnered one of the strangers during the buffalo dance.

When one of the young men paused in front of Clark, pipe held out expectantly, the captain shook his head and raised both hands, in a gesture they knew transcended language. He stammered, trying to say, in the few words of Mandan he'd mastered, that he was honored but had to politely decline. The young man returned with his wife, holding the pipe out a second time, and Clark looked a bit panicked.

Lewis leaned in again. "Just refuse, unless you're minded to -- " he gestured at the dim edges of the lodge, where the selected men had begun the business of the buffalo dance, lying down on the buffalo robes their partners had worn and taking the women in their arms. Other pairs made their way out of the lodge, whether to other lodges or to lie in the snow Lewis knew not. The Indians had an amazing tolerance for the cold, but he was barely able to lower his trousers to piss outside in weather like this. The idea of copulating in the snow held no appeal whatsoever.

"I am not minded to," Clark said firmly, and again gestured his rejection to the couple. The woman looked irritated, Lewis thought, but the man smiled, taking it in stride and moving on to offer her favors to an older man of their own people.

The sounds of flesh on flesh, in flesh, surrounded them as the dance wore on, the insistent beat of the drums and the warmth of the fires lulling Lewis into a sort of stupor. He saw his men disporting themselves with the Indian women, saw the dancers moving around the fire, ate from the tray of cornmeal balls Sheheke passed him, and it all blurred together. The lodge smelled of smoke and sweat, the dust scuffed up by the dancers' feet and the dark animal tang of damp buffalo hair. He leaned against Clark, or Clark leaned against him, watching the dance and the motion around him, eyes moving from one couple, to the next, to the dancers whose motions mimicked the buffalo they'd chase on the morrow, to the fire, burning high as the young men fed it with wood and buffalo chips.

The pair of them and their host were the only people there not -- not partaking, and then Sheheke was offered a pipe and he moved into the dimness of the lodge, meeting Lewis' eyes and grinning as he laid down beside a young woman, her long hair covering his face and chest as she moved over him. Lewis watched for a moment, part of him noting the mating customs of the aborigines for future reference and part of him thinking back to the last time someone had leaned over him with that sort of intent.

Clark's voice in his ear, strained, broke into his reverie. "I have got to -- Merry, do you think we can make our farewells?"

Lewis turned, looked into his eyes. "A bit much?" he asked, and without waiting for an answer he stood and began to edge his way out of the lodge. Sheheke was otherwise occupied and their men didn't meet his eyes as he moved toward the door, Clark following closely. Their absence would be noted but not, he thought, with any hostility.

They stepped through the door passageway and Lewis saw, unsurprised, that the Indians were indeed hardy enough to copulate outdoors, at night, in the dead of winter. He took a moment to watch one particularly athletic couple -- that was young Private Shannon, unless he missed his guess; he recognized that backside -- while Clark came up beside him.

"Back to the fort?" Clark asked, and Lewis, smiling, turned away.

"Certainly, Captain." The night was dark, but they had re-kindled the lantern. Their breath froze in clouds around them as they walked, so they went almost through a fog of their own exhalations. Lewis' face was numbing through his muffler and his thighs felt heavy with the chill. He couldn't feel his hands and feet within a few minutes of leaving the medicine lodge, and clenched and unclenched his fingers and toes to keep the blood moving through them. Clark, wrapped in two coats and his three-point blanket, glanced at him and raised his shoulders toward his ears in a deep wince of discomfort. Lewis would have made some response, but he didn't like to open his mouth unless he had to. The Field brothers had a story about a man whose tongue had frozen to his teeth, and he wasn't entirely sure it was a lie.

Their return was hailed by the sentry, and they walked through the pass-gate and back to their room. Lewis pulled the blanket that curtained the door back into place, then shrugged off his coat and jacket and built up the fire they'd banked before they left. He traded his damp moccasins for a dry pair of wool stockings and turned to Clark, who waited, still, just inside the door. He was frowning. The snow melting off the hem of his blanket dripped on the earthen floor.

"William?" Lewis asked, voice soft. "Are you -- "

Clark looked up, met his eyes. "Merry?" he asked, then stopped.

Lewis raised his eyebrows, waited.

"Help me?" Clark asked, sounding wretched.

Lewis took two long steps, took Clark's shoulders in his hands. "Are you -- " He peered into the other's face.

Clark's arms came up and gripped him, and Clark's mouth caught his, and Lewis inhaled sharply and stepped into his embrace. Clark broke off the kiss just long enough to mutter, "Help me, Merry," and Lewis answered of course, of course, of course I will, and then they were staggering back onto their bed and Clark had, thank goodness, dropped the damp mass of his woolen blanket on the floor before falling onto the buffalo robes, Lewis' body beneath his. They were much of a size, and as Lewis fumbled Clark's coats off and wrestled with still-numb fingers at the buttons of his fly, he thought, well, at least we line up properly. I'm always so much bigger than everyone else.

Clark's mouth was hot and his hands were desperate and, if Lewis was honest, clumsy, and he wondered for a moment if the other man had done this, in the decade since they'd first been together, or if he'd confined himself to women. To whores. The thought left him cold for a moment, his eyes opened and he looked up at the daub-covered puncheons of the ceiling, and then Clark's hand found its way through the three shirts, the deerskin trousers, and the two sets of long wool drawers he wore, and gripped him, and Lewis' head fell back and he groaned.

It took them a while; they were out of practice and it was fiendishly cold and they were wearing impossible amounts of clothing, and part of Lewis' mind really couldn't believe that he was being so foolish as to do this, this thing that had been part of their fondly-remembered youth, not at all part of their amiable and utterly intimate present. In the morning he would, in the morning he would -- in the morning, you will write a description of that bird that's waiting for you in the snowbank behind the kitchen, he told himself, you will lead an exemplary life of virtue, unbounded virtue, you will be a veritable model of all that is good and pure and right. But it is not in-the-morning, and -- he reached out and pulled the layers of Clark's clothes apart until he found his body, and slid down into the warmth under the bedding and sucked at him.

He handled himself, unwilling to consider, honestly, how the other man would react if he asked him to -- to -- well, he was -- they were -- they were here, and he was -- he was thinking, is what he was doing, he was too wise to ask -- it matters too much, he realized, in the sort of moment of clarity he didn't like to have with a cock in his mouth. There was -- and he had better not -- oh, stop it, he said to himself angrily, stop it and think with your goddamned prick for once, and he brought up his other hand and gripped Clark's ass and put his experience to good use and they both -- well, there, he thought, finally, still furious with himself, as Clark thrust forward, clutching at his shoulder, and Lewis ejaculated in that half-satisfactory way that meant at least it was over.

Clark rolled onto his back. "Oh, Lord. I am -- thank you, my dear."

Lewis pushed himself up, head emerging from under the bedcovers, and pulled the stack of blankets up to cover their shoulders. He snaked one arm out, seizing his fur hat and jamming it back over his head. "I am always prepared to aid a friend in need. You know that," he said, trying to keep his voice light but still a little breathless.

Clark reached out, found his hand, and squeezed it. "You are. You know I hold you in the highest esteem, Merry." Lewis smiled up at the low ceiling.

They laid there like that, the fire popping and smoking, and after a time Lewis said, idly, "Drouillard tells me that there are men like me among many of the tribes."

"You've -- you've discussed your -- this -- with Drouillard?"

"No, no, not -- nothing about myself," Lewis reassured him. "We were speaking more generally. These men, they go about in the clothing of women, and take men for their lovers, and act in all ways as women do. He tells me he has met them among the Sioux."

Clark snorted. "The hell with the Sioux, they've got them up at the village. There were two of them here a couple of days before Christmas, dressed like the women. Traded us those little sheep horns you liked so much." He shook his head. "Nothing like you. You haven't done anything womanly since you got out of skirts, and you know it."

Lewis watched the smoke roll around the corners of the room, tumbling down the walls and dissipating as it hit the colder air near the floor. They still hadn't got the chimney drawing properly, and everything smelt of smoke. "Aside from the obvious?"

"There's nothing obvious about it. You are -- there is nothing about you which is -- " he paused, obviously hunting for the right words. "There is nothing -- listen, Merry, there is nothing about you, your -- disposition -- which is unmanly. You are -- you are kindly toward your friends. Of whom I am one. And this does not mean that we are not men, or men for women, or any of the things which men ought to be." He stopped and sighed.

"You know that I have, when I am in Philadelphia, that I -- " Lewis broke off.

"Of course I know that," Clark replied, almost angrily. "I don't see that it makes any difference."

"It makes some difference to me," Lewis mused.

"But it is hardly all that you are. Because if it were, you wouldn't be here. You would not be the President's representative."

"I could tell you things about the President -- " Lewis started, halting when Clark glanced at him. "I won't, Will, you know I won't. But I am, you should understand that I am -- "

"My very dear companion," Clark said firmly, "and always will be, God willing. I won't hear any more of this, Merry, I mean it. Let's get some sleep. We'll be expected to put up a good show, in the morning, in the hunt. We've got to get some rest." He turned over, fitting his back up against Lewis' flank, and was still. Lewis stared up at the ceiling, watching the smoke, and didn't know when he passed into sleep.

 

_Fort Mandan: February 7, 1805_

 

"The red-haired chief says what?" Six Horses snapped at Charbonneau, who retreated back through the doorway of their hut at this outburst. The cold air bit in at them, and Sacagawea wished he'd stop standing there with the door open.

"No more door night," he said, obviously startled by Six Horses' anger. "No door open night, no women night, no open door."

"What is he trying to say?" she demanded of Sacagawea, in their shared language.

The younger woman, sitting by the fire parching corn in a clay pot, told her, "He says the white men don't want us to open the gate at night and let Stands-like-a-woman and her sisters in. I think they're worried that the Sioux will sneak in and kill us all in our sleep. As if they couldn't kill us all during the daytime."

"But she's about to have the baby!" Six Horses shouted at their husband. "How is she supposed to have a baby by herself? Do you suppose babies just appear? Or that they only come in the daytime? A woman needs other women around to help her, especially the first time. You brought us down here to live with all these strangers and now you won't let her have anyone to help when the baby comes?" Sacagawea had never imagined Six Horses could get this angry at anyone but her. It was unexpected. And it was nice to have someone taking her part for a change, even if she didn't think it would make any difference.

Charbonneau shook his head, said, "Not to be happening, no. White chief medicine to be helping with baby."

Six Horses gave him a horrified look. "White chief medicine? For a baby? Out! Get out! Out!" She seized his shoulder, pushed him through the door -- protests notwithstanding -- and slammed it in his wake. "You go find somewhere else to sleep tonight!" she yelled at the closed door, and added, under her breath, "He could not be more stupid."

"I suppose they think they're being helpful," Sacagawea shrugged. "They do all the medicine for their men, they must think they can do a baby, too."

"Oh, I don't think so," Six Horses spat. "They can keep to themselves. I'll help with the baby."

Sacagawea smiled at her. "Thank you."

"Watch what you're doing, you. You're going to burn that if you don't keep stirring." She shook her head disgustedly. "I'm not doing anything but what's right to do. But if that husband thinks he can just crawl back into my bed after this -- well, he had better adjust his thinking. Hah. White chief medicine. Imagine."

 

_On the Missouri, in the Lands of the Assiniboine: May 14, 1805_

 

"I can't see it," Lewis called. Clark gestured with his hand: keep going. But the other man shook his head. "Too many trees!"

"Well, bugger," Clark muttered, folding the tripod and setting it, and the large compass, against his shoulder. They'd have to go back around, then, and he'd have to find somewhere he could get a decent sight from, and it would be dark in a couple of hours and he still hadn't ordered the men out of the river and gotten them started on setting up the camp. Hell, he wasn't even sure where they were going to camp. Maybe Lewis had some idea. He'd been tramping up and down the bank all day botanizing, he might have seen something.

He heard a couple of shots, and then a volley, echoing from further up the valley, but didn't think much of it -- they'd told the men to take a chance at fresh meat, if they got it, and he assumed they were doing as much. I'd rather be shooting something, he thought with a frown. Usually he enjoyed surveying, taking pride in the orderly lists of figures in his notebook and connecting up the penciled dots on the draft map. But today nothing had gone right. He couldn't get good sights on any of his landmarks, and he'd lost two pencils in the high grass, and he'd slipped in a muddy spot, hit the ground hard, and had a great dark bruise developing on one hip. He'd fallen so far behind that he'd given up, hollered for Lewis, and demanded his assistance with finishing off the day's measurements.

"I don't see anywhere on this bank that's any good," Lewis told him when they met up. "I think we'd better cut over that saddle and see if we can't catch up with the men."

Clark flicked at the dried mud on his trousers and, snorting, said, "I have been more effective. From time to time."

Lewis clapped him on the shoulder. "It's not you, it's the trees. Come on." He led the way through the long grass toward the ridgeline, saying, "You may be able to see something from the hill."

Eyeing the wooded hillside dubiously, Clark shook his head but followed in the other's wake. "Have you found us a camp?" he called out, after a few minutes, as they crossed over the saddle.

"No, but I haven't got a good idea where the men are yet." Lewis paused and looked back at him. "Were those shots I heard behind us?"

Clark nodded. "I think so."

"That's good, then. Something fresh to eat."

They came down to the bluff, hiking along a game trail that ran along through the shrubbery at the top of the bank, looking between the trees to the river for their men. The sun was still above the trees on the far side of the river, but here next to the bank it was shady and cool. It was staying light later and later, Clark thought, the still-cold spring turning slowly to early summer, and this far north the summer days would go on forever. He smiled at the thought as a cold gust of wind blew past. He was ready for warmer weather.

"I think that's a sail," Lewis said, breaking into his reverie. Clark looked where he pointed, saw the white patch of a sail ahead, on the river, and grunted his assent. By unspoken agreement they picked up the pace.

They came downhill toward the river just in time to see the white pirogue, on the far side of the water, heel over. The red pirogue and the canoes were upstream, just drawing out of sight around another oxbow. There was another gust of wind and the white pirogue's sail dipped into the water, and even from the bank Clark and Lewis could hear the shouts of those on board.

The captains started running, the tripod bouncing painfully against Clark's shoulder as they tried to find a clearing where they could get down to the water. On the river, they heard Charbonneau screaming in French, and then there was a break in the trees and they came out to see Cruzatte, in the bow, with a pistol drawn and pointed at Charbonneau, who sat in the steersman's position, arms raised in front of his face.

"What is he shouting?" Clark asked, horrified.

"Something about the tiller? I can barely make it out, but I heard him say _barre_."

"Damn you, Charbonneau, stop bawling and do something," Clark snapped, though he knew his voice wouldn't carry far enough. Their instruments were in the boat. And his maps. And the medicine. Hell. He watched as the oarsmen labored to right the craft, hiking out over the side opposite the wet sail, and then Charbonneau finally took the tiller back in hand and pushed it away from himself, turning the boat out of the wind. "Why don't they haul in the goddamned sail?"

"Or cut the halyards," Lewis said angrily, bringing his rifle up and firing it up in the air. "If they would just -- "

Clark, realizing that Lewis was trying to get the men's attention, laid down the tripod and, pulling his rifle around, shrugged the strap off and fired it as well. "I don't think they can hear us."

Lewis dropped his rifle and pulled his shot pouch off his belt. "Will, watch this for me, I'm going to -- " He began pulling at his coat buttons, but Clark grabbed his arm and pulled him around.

"Going to what? Jump down there and swim? You'll freeze!"

Lewis tried to get his arm loose but Clark had him fast. "Damn it, let me go, I have got to -- "

"Are you mad? You'd be killed." Clark dragged him around so they could both see the pirogue. "Stop fighting with me, goddamn it, Merry, stop it or I'll -- " Lewis pulled again and he pushed, suddenly angry, knocking both of them to the ground. "What are you -- you're mad, stop it, stop it!" They scrabbled at each other, ending with Clark on top, hands braced on Lewis' shoulders. They stared into each other's faces for a couple of beats before Lewis, flushing, looked away.

Of course, as soon as Clark turned his eyes back to the river -- they hadn't been wrestling for more than a few seconds, all told -- Lewis wriggled out from under him, knocking him on his ass and going to stand at the edge of the bank. Clark was back on his feet almost immediately, but Lewis shouted, "All right! It's all right, you're right, I won't go in. Look, they've got her up, and Pryor's got York and Whitehouse and Shields bailing. And thank God, the Indian woman's got ahold of the sextant case. Oh, and your little box -- that was quick of her."

"Do me a favor and come back from the edge," Clark growled, coming up to stand beside him. Lewis reluctantly took a few steps back. His back was smeared with mud and bits of leaf mould, and Clark reached out a hand and dusted his buckskin shirt off. Lewis flinched, giving him a startled look, then realized what he was doing and looked back at the boat.

"I think they're going to bring her in on that little beach down there," Lewis told him. "Damn, but she's low in the water. And look, the red pirogue's heard them and is coming about."

Clark grabbed his sleeve. "Reload your gun and let's get one of the canoes over here to collect us." He reloaded his own weapon and picked up the tripod, then marched toward a low place in the bank where he thought he could get down to the water, throwing over his shoulder, "Come along and try not to do anything stupid where the men can see, will you?"

"I'm sorry, Will," Lewis said, half-audibly.

"Right," Clark answered, not bothering to turn around. Reaching the shore, he put the tripod down, again, and fired his rifle up over the trees. "Ah, they've seen us." He raised his arm and made the signal to come collect them. One of the canoes turned and came toward them, running up on the bank. Lewis caught the bow and pulled it up, gravel grating under the hull. They passed their equipment in, then helped paddle the little boat across the river to the rocky beach where the white pirogue was wallowing ashore.

Cruzatte, still cursing steadily -- at least, Clark assumed he was cursing, from the tone -- jumped from the bow and dragged the pirogue up the shore, then turned and began berating Charbonneau again. Charbonneau sat at the helm, occasionally making some effort at response but obviously so shaken that he could muster no real objection to Cruzatte's diatribe. The man ought to learn to swim if the water scares him that badly, Clark thought, and decided it was as well when, as their canoe pulled ashore, Sergeant Pryor took Cruzatte by the shoulder and led him down the beach. He didn't want the men fighting among themselves.

And you're doing so well at that yourself this afternoon, Captain Clark, he told himself angrily, glowering at Lewis' back. With any luck the pirogue's crew had been too preoccupied to notice their captains wrestling like a couple of schoolboys.

Lewis was already out of the canoe and into the pirogue, pulling wet bundles out of the hold and passing them down to waiting hands on shore. It would be hours of work to get everything unloaded and dried, though at least -- Clark glanced up at the sky -- at least the weather was fair.

Clark called Pryor over. "Sergeant, we'll have our camp here tonight," he said, and, in a lower tone, "and keep Cruzatte with you for now. I don't want him near the pirogue, he's too angry." The sergeant nodded. They both knew it was better to let matters settle out; Cruzatte was a good man.

Their tents could dry just as well pitched, so they did that, heaving the sodden things up and bracing them with extra poles. Lewis got his folding table assembled and spread the instrument cases out across it, and one of the men had found a clean roll of flannel, still dry, in one of the canoes, which the captain was using to dry and grease everything sensitive.

By sunset, despite the incongruity of having all of the clothing, trade goods, medicines, and equipment that had been in the white pirogue spread on bushes and hung from trees around the camp to dry, Clark was beginning to feel that all might not be lost. They had eaten, they were encamped, and it looked like most of their materiel would be fine, despite the dousing. Even if he hadn't spoken to Lewis since they'd left the far side of the river. Well, he'd figure that out. Neither of them were the type to hold a grudge. He packed tobacco into his pipe, lit it with a little glowing sliver from the cookfire, and, propping his feet up on a stone, inhaled deeply.

Which was, of course, when Drouillard staggered into camp, soaking wet and lugging a parcel of meat from a gigantic brown bear which had chased two of the hunters into the river, nearly swamped their canoe, and taken eight balls to kill. The hunters were exhausted, wet and bloody, and thought themselves lucky to be alive.

Clark, midway through the metis' tale, caught Lewis' eye and both men started laughing, unable to help themselves. "It never rains but it pours, Captain Lewis," Clark managed finally.

"Oh, indeed. Oh, Lord. No, no, Drouillard, I beg your pardon. We're not laughing at you. We're laughing at -- " he looked to Clark, shaking with it, eyes alight.

"Fate," Clark supplied. "We are laughing at fate, Mr. Drouillard."

 

_Camp Fortunate, in the Lands of the Shoshone: August 24, 1805_

 

Sacagawea took the pony's reins, smiling at him and pulling the horse forward to introduce herself and the baby. The pony's wet nose snuffled at both of them, and she laughed as Jean-Baptiste put his hand up and got it wet and messy. She wiped the snot and grass off in the pony's mane, then threw the rein over his neck and, with the little hop and skip she'd learned before she could remember, she threw herself and her son up on the pony's back, the baby laughing, her strong right arm holding him against her.

"Good to be back on a horse?" Jumping Fish called out, standing by her daughter, and Sacagawea grinned down at her. It was a fine morning, warm and bright -- it would be hot, later, but the cool of the night lingered there at the riverbank. And she felt almost like herself again, back on a horse.

"Those Hidatsa bastards never let us do anything but walk," she said cheerfully to Jumping Fish. "Walk here, walk there, carry this and walk it somewhere else." She heeled the pony around in a tight circle, her moccassined feet drumming on his barrel. "And these white men and their boats! It's not how sensible people travel, I tell you."

"Better our way," her friend agreed. "So much faster, on a pony."

There was a yell, and she looked over to see Clark, concern on his face, gesturing to her and shouting a garble of English. She picked out a few words -- she had more English, after these months with the white men, than she'd ever admit -- and he threw in the Hidatsa for "baby" and "horse" and made a lot of negative hand gestures.

"What's the red-haired chief saying?" Jumping Fish asked.

"He's afraid I'm going to drop the baby," Sacagawea answered.

Jumping Fish laughed, disbelieving. "You? Drop a baby off a horse? Might as well say he'd fall off the ground."

"I know, I know. He's very fond of the baby. Gets these ideas. Too bad I can't understand a word he's saying." She smiled at Jumping Fish and, raising Jean-Baptiste's fat little arm, waved it at the captain.

Clark repeated his motions, but Sacagawea kicked the horse and rode him up through the camp, to the head of the little valley and up the slope just high enough to see down, over the tents, down to the river where the horse-herd milled and splashed and she could see the white men struggling with their new saddles. Jumping Fish, the little girl, and Clark were little blurry dots on the riverbank. Above her, the sharp peaks of the mountains rose, their tips snowy even at the end of summer. These were the lands of her people, the places where she'd been a girl. These were the mountains they'd crossed each summer to hunt on the prairies, the meadows where they'd gathered food, the rivers they'd fished. She knew these places, bone-deep.

But there were fewer tents than there had been, when she was a child. They were not so many, her people, now. There was nothing to eat, and the slave raids had taken a toll. She loved being here, she loved seeing her friends, her brother, speaking with them, being among them, but this was no place to raise children. And no man here would have her, with her baby. Her brother -- impossible to believe that he was the chief of their people, now, he'd been a boy when the Hidatsa took her -- had hinted that if she disposed of the child, he might be able to negotiate something, and she'd given him a cold look and clutched Jean-Baptiste to her breast. That had ended that discussion.

She dropped a kiss on her son's head, his fine hair soft against her nose, smelling the familiar and yet indescribable scent of his small head. It was funny how every baby smelled distinct, to his mother. How strange that her boy, son of the man she'd never wanted, should be so much a part of her heart. How strange that she would leave her people for his sake, after wishing for so long to be back with them.

She took a deep breath, filling her lungs with the crisp mountain air, then pulled the pony's head up from the grass he'd been cropping and kicked him into motion, running him back down to the riverbank.

 

_In the Oregon Country: November 7, 1805_

 

Clark dropped onto the huge driftwood log beside Lewis. The camp was behind them, and he could hear the sound of Cruzatte's fiddle, the cheerful calls of dancing men, and the cracking and popping of the celebratory bonfire they'd made. "Well," he said, "here we are. The Pacific."

Lewis smiled a little, without looking at him, and didn't say anything. Clark folded his arms and waited. It was a foggy night after a cloudy, misty day, but somewhere back of all that fog was a full moon, so the sky glowed all over, a deep, pearly violet-gray. He heard that longed-for sound of salt waves breaking on sand, draining back into the ocean, over and over, an entirely different noise than the chuckle and flow of the rivers they'd camped beside for hundreds of nights.

And somewhere on that ocean, he thought, are places so far east they become the west, Cathay and Malabar and the Sandwich Islands, sea-coasts and continents impossibly distant. Or less-impossibly, given how far they'd come these past two years, with their medals and their beads and their sextants and their notebooks and their portable soup. He grinned to himself.

"It's all backwards from here," Lewis said at last, very softly.

Clark raised his eyebrows, half-startled. Lewis still hadn't met his eyes. He looked -- Clark didn't know how he looked. Expressionless. Melancholic, maybe. Oh, the hell with it. Clark reached out, put his fingers on the other man's jaw, turned his head, and kissed him.

"Come for a walk with me, Captain Lewis," Clark said, formally.

Lewis raised his eyebrows. He still wasn't really looking at Clark; he was looking past him, into the night. "Do you really think that helps anything?"

"Yes," Clark answered, simply, leaning against him. "I brought a blanket."

"Optimistic, aren't you?" Lewis' voice was dry, and what was that supposed to mean?

Clark sighed, rubbed at his forehead, and offered, "If you'd rather not, I understand."

Lewis tensed. "I do. I should. Yes." He rose abruptly, taking his rifle in hand, reaching for Clark's arm and drawing him up, too. "Bring your blanket, Will."

They made their way along the strand in the half-light until they were well away from the camp, then Lewis stopped, raised a hand, and they both listened, carefully, for anything that might have been following them. Hearing nothing, Clark laid the blanket down in the sand and pebbles in the lee of a sandbank, out of the wind, and pulled Lewis down onto it, holding him closely and folding the blanket over them both.

It was, like most of their fucks, a matter of muffled sounds and grit in uncomfortable places and keeping as many clothes on as possible, reaching into one another's trousers with spit-slick hands, and Clark was ready for it -- they were here, they were finally here, and together, and he was so grateful. His face dropped into the hollow between Merry's neck and his shoulder, nose brushing up against his shirt, and his body was warm and familiar-smelling against his face. His hand worked at Merry's prick and that was familiar, too. He shut his eyes and took a deep breath and they were together, together, he could feel it, and he gasped and bit his lip, hard enough to draw blood, and spent into Merry's hands. And a little later Merry came, too, panting, stiffening and then going limp in his arms, and that was good.

He offered the other man his kerchief and tucked himself, still a little tender, back into his clothes, and they got up, shaking the sand out of the blanket and shouldering their rifles. The two of them walked back into camp, where the fire was still burning high. As Clark stood before it he felt warmed through and full of goodwill, toward Merry as toward them all.

 

_In the Oregon Country: January 8, 1806_

 

"This it is, Janey," Clark said, "the great fish." A brisk cold wind, tasting of salt, snatched the words from his mouth as fast as he could say them.

Sacagawea reached her hand out to touch the great arc of the whale's rib. They'd walked for two days to get here, hoping to take advantage of the bounty offered by the beached animal. It had been a good-sized beast, Clark estimated, maybe thirty tons, most of that stripped off by the Tillamooks and carried away to their villages. The bones, still gory, lay on the beach, picked at by gulls and a pack of half-wild dogs.

"Captain Lewis has dug up the bones of a mammoth -- a mammoth is a kind of very large land animal, like a buffalo but much bigger -- and this is bigger even than that," he told her, voice raised to carry. "I think that on land something like this would collapse under its own weight, eventually. But the water bears them up."

She glanced at him. He didn't think she understood most of what he said. In a way, that was pleasant: he certainly couldn't confide in any of the men, and there were things he didn't like to discuss with Lewis -- as, for instance, his concern about the other man's late demeanor -- but he regularly found himself sitting with Sacagawea, holding Jean-Baptiste in his lap, talking about all manner of subjects. She didn't seem to mind, seemed even to appreciate someone else taking the baby for a few minutes. And it wasn't like Charbonneau was much use with the child. The baby was strapped to Sacagawea's back, and Clark reached out, stroked the sleeping boy's cheek as his mother examined the carcass. Feeling the motion, she turned her head and smiled at him. He grinned back. There were, of course, a lot of things about babies that could be appreciated with no commonality of language whatsoever.

The two of them circled the whale, Clark penciling a few notes against the questions he knew Lewis would have. Pryor and Field were engaged in an attempt to turn the skull over, Field digging the sand out under it with a stick while Pryor pushed it back and forth. "If we can get it open," Pryor said, shoving at the grisly thing, "there's oil on the inside."

Clark shook his head. "Not this kind of whale, no. Only in the sperm whale, Sergeant. These carry all their oil in the blubber."

"Oh." Pryor rocked back on his heels, looking disappointed. "They took it all, then."

"The Tillamook? Oh, yes, I think so," he answered. "We'll have to go in to the village and see if we can't trade for some."

That caught Sacagawea's attention, he could tell. It was a good thing she'd insisted on coming with them; these coastal Indians, the Chinooks and Clatsops and Tillamooks, were hagglers, used to trading with the white men, English and American, who sailed up the Columbia each summer bringing guns and kettles and blankets to trade for furs. They expected the expedition to be able to pay the same prices the sea-borne traders did, never mind that they'd come overland. Hard as the Indians were, they sometimes showed a little mercy toward a kind-faced girl with a baby on her back. They hadn't much merchandise; he'd use that sympathy, if he could.

He looked down along the length of the leviathan, the lumps of its spine and the arches of its ribs. Even disassembled, it was impressive.

 

_Fort Clatsop, in the Oregon Country: February 10, 1806_

 

Lewis, leaving the sickroom, glanced up past the brim of his round Clatsop rain hat. It was a cold wet morning, latest in a long line of cold wet mornings, the sky dismal and lowering. Never so cold as on the plains, no, but wet, interminably wet, and interminably cheerless. Or maybe that was him. They had reached the end of their road, and their road was -- well, it was nothing to brag on, he was afraid.

He crossed the fort's muddy courtyard and pushed open the doorway to the second hut, checking to see if the men were keeping on with the hides. The conversation stopped as he stuck his head through the door. "All well here?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," Sergeant Pryor answered him, looking up from the half-finished moccasin in his lap.

"Good, good. Carry on, then." An insipid thing to say, but they'd know he was paying attention, and that was what mattered.

"Very well, sir," the sergeant answered, and Lewis nodded and pulled the door shut again.

They had spent months, it felt like, waiting for something to do. Only so many men could be kept occupied making salt, or hunting, on any given day, so they'd set the rest of them to mending clothes and equipment and making moccasins. There was an ungodly large heap of moccasins in a chest in the storeroom, but neither he nor Clark could think of a more useful occupation.

The door to the room he shared with Clark had swelled, sticking in the frame, and he had to shove hard at it to get it open. He entertained further uncharitable thoughts about the climate as he wrestled with it. The room was dim; Clark had the shutters closed to keep the rain out, and the whale-oil lamp, set on their shared work-table, guttered in the draft. "Do you suppose we'll see the sun again before we depart?" he asked the other man, giving the door a hard push to wedge it closed.

"Now, then," Clark said, mildly, cupping a hand around the lamp wick to steady the flame, "I myself observed the sun for a good ninety minutes last week."

"And I imagine that you thought, well, that was excessively decadent, and went inside and waited for the rain to begin again." He tipped his hat onto a nail by the door, hanging it beside Clark's, then sat on the bed to remove his damp moccasins.

"Hah. No, I enjoyed it. Admittedly, my feet were still damp, but my head wasn't. For once. Besides, inside I have to breathe the funk of your specimens. Really, would it be so difficult to get them drawn before they start to stink?"

"Everything stinks. Everything grows mold. Fie, I am growing mold." Lewis bent to hang the moccasins over the little drying rack they'd set up in front of the fire.

"Not truly," Clark said, with some concern, glancing at him.

Lewis spared him an amused glance. "No, not truly. Though better mold than some of the alternatives."

"McNeal's not still poxy, is he?"

Lewis nodded. "The mercury's done little for him. But Gibson looks better, and I think Goodrich's recovery is certain." He'd put Goodrich back on moccasin duty, and it was a sign of how dull things were in the sickroom that the private had thanked him for it.

"Well, that's something. I will never understand how they can patronize those bawds and not expect to contract something unpleasant." Clark paused for a moment, pencil poised over his calculations, and said, "You know, I'm nearly finished with this."

"The draft map? That's good. How does it look?" He came to lean over Clark's shoulder, peering at the sheet. If there were one subject he wasn't going to discuss with Clark, it was, most assuredly, whores. Maps, on the other hand, he could contemplate all day. As long as the man did not take to mapping whores. That would exceed their mandate, to put it mildly, even if it did constitute information vital to trade.

"We can certainly call ours the most direct route across the continent," Clark told him, still gazing at the map. "But -- "

"It's hardly the highway to the west Jefferson was hoping for."

Clark shook his head. "No, it is not. And I am glad it is you, and not I, who will be conveying that news."

"Unless we could dam the Columbia." Lewis laughed, bitter at the impossibility of it, a dam big enough to hold back the mass of water that rushed between those huge black cliffs, draining out all the sopping wet lands that bordered the Pacific. "Make it into a great smooth lake. And build a level wagon-road over the mountains. And subdue the Sioux, and pacify the Blackfeet, and and and. You know, I think he expects me to walk back into Washington with a brass band in tow, announcing that I have single-handedly opened the west to commerce." A wave of his hand took in his untidy beard, mildewed deerskin smock, stained trousers, and the two pairs of much-mended stockings that covered his feet. "Witness the enlightened man, master of the destiny of nations!"

"Ah, yes, I can imagine the dinner parties now," said Clark, grinning back at him, "'But what we're really wondering, Captain Lewis, is how many ways you know to cook elk?'"

"Oh, well," Lewis replied, playing along, "there's your braised elk, and your boiled elk, stewed elk, elk with salt, elk cutlets, and elk with a side dish of anchovy. But what you really want for your dinner on a long expedition is a nice dog. Nothing like dog's meat."

Clark shuddered. "There are some things I will never be reconciled to."

"Hah."

"Oh, I'll eat it. I just won't think about it." He shook his head and turned back to his map, taking up his ruler and pencil again.

Lewis sat back on the bed, rested his head in his hands. There was work to be done, of course; the stinking fish waiting for him on the table, next to his open journal, attested to that. But his mind was in Virginia, walking up the steps of Monticello, through the arched door, following a servant back to the Book Room, and then -- he couldn't see it. Or didn't like to see it. Telling the President the dream on which they'd staked the nation, the water route to the west, was impossible. What Hamilton and his Federalists would do with that, when they heard.

There are other compensations, Lewis told himself, as he had before. There are the furs, and the Indian trade. And it is not as though Meriwether Lewis walking across the continent has made any change to it: this has always been impossible. We just did not know it.

 

_Camp Chopunnish, in the Lands of the Nez Perce: June 8, 1806_

 

Sacagawea lifted her son up onto her back, tightened her cradleboard straps, collected her basket, and made her way between the tents. The snow was heavy still, on the mountains above them, and their troupe lingered in the meadows, camped with Broken Arm's people, waiting for the passes to clear. They all remembered their passage through the mountains the previous fall. She'd been terrified that the baby would freeze, or frostbite his little hands, or smother under the blankets she'd wrapped around him. He was older now, but he'd been so sick just a few weeks before. She looked up at the mountains and shook her head. The white men were eager to leave. She didn't like the idea; this was a fine camp, with good water and plentiful game and roots to eat. Of course, it wasn't her decision.

Before her, in the meadow, the men had organized a shooting game, like the races they'd run earlier. The competition had begun with arrows and darts, then proceeded to guns. Unsurprisingly the Nez Perce had won the first round, though the metis Drouillard had gotten in a few good shots, but the few guns the natives had were hardly able to compete with the white men's firearms. Most of Broken Arm's men stood together, watching the shooting and murmuring to one another.

Captain Lewis, shooting last, raised his rifle to his shoulder and fired from a considerable distance, taking the top off the target, a sapling stuck in the top of a post. The watching crowd cried out admiringly, and the man smiled and bowed before reloading. His display was strange, she thought, as if he believed they were applauding him and not the gun. Perhaps he was demonstrating his pride in owning such a weapon.

They were marvelous things, these American guns the captains had promised her brother and the Nez Perce chiefs. And they would do marvelous work, if they were ever delivered. They would stop the slave raids of the Hidatsa and the Arikara, stop the horse-thieving Blackfeet, perhaps even take on the Sioux. With guns like these, her people could revenge years of injustice.

And yet every time they offered the weapons, in exchange for trading furs with them rather than the English, these Americans talked of peace between the tribes. Time and again she'd sat in a chief's lodge, translating their speeches, and it never failed to confound her. Why would you offer a people guns like this, if you didn't expect them to be put to use?

She hitched the baby up and frowned at the captain as a new target was fitted into the post. He took aim and destroyed it as well. Clark, standing beside him, rested a hand on his shoulder and leaned in to speak in his ear. And how Clark could think their relations were secret, when they behaved as they did together, was a mystery to her. Of course, there were many things she didn't understand about the way they acted. It was bad medicine, she thought, and shook her head. Clark knew it as well as she did.

She waited to see if Lewis would shoot again, but they seemed to have finished. It was as well -- much more of this, and Broken Arm was liable to think they were being arrogant again, and refuse to help them through the mountains.

 

_On the Missouri River, at its Confluence with the Yellowstone: August 12, 1806_

 

"Ho the canoes!" Sergeant Pryor, standing watch on the riverbank, waved his arm in the air and called out to the camp. "It's our men! Canoes ho!"

Clark rose to his feet and gestured to Bratton and Shields, who trotted down to the water to help land the boats. Five weeks, give or take, Clark thought, since we parted. He dusted off the front of his jacket and the seat of his britches and grinned. Parted, and here we are together again.

Ordway was the first to come up into the camp, and from the expression on his face Clark knew immediately that something was amiss. "You've news, Sergeant?"

"It's the captain, sir. He's been wounded."

Clark blanched. "Wounded?"

The sergeant leaned in and spoke softly. "It was Cruzatte, sir. Shot him yesterday. By accident, as near as we can tell, but -- " Clark had already pushed past him and was running for the bank.

He came down to the shore and didn't see Lewis. "Drouillard!" he bellowed, seeing the trapper leaning over the side of the pirogue.

"Sir?"

"Where is Captain Lewis?"

From the pirogue issued an irritable voice. "I'm down in the bottom of this damned boat."

"Oh, hell," Clark muttered, and rushed to the side of the craft. Lewis lay in the bottom, belly-down, wrapped in a bloodstained and filthy blanket, the bilge-water sloshing around him. "You're -- oh, hell," he said again.

"I'm going to be fine," Lewis told him. "The ball went right through. I'm just too stiff to stand."

"Went right through what?" Clark exclaimed.

"My ass, Captain Clark," Lewis answered disgustedly. "That bast-- Private Cruzatte shot me in the ass. At least I have to assume it was Cruzatte, since I don't think the United States Army has been issuing shot to the aborigines and I found a .54 caliber round in my goddamn pants. But he insists he never discharged his gun."

"How did he -- "

"Cruzatte feels terrible," Drouillard broke in.

"He'd better!" Clark exclaimed, at the same time Lewis muttered, "He's not the only one."

"Lord help us," Clark said, stepping into the boat and wincing as his weight pulled it over and Lewis slid to one side, gasping. Clark reached out with a hand to steady him. "You can't stay in here. God, you're soaking wet."

"I stayed in here last night," Lewis told him.

"You what? I will -- Drouillard, you should have known better," Clark barked angrily, turning his head to glare at him. Drouillard shrugged. "Well, go get a blanket and some men. We'll lift him out. I'm not leaving him here in the bottom of the goddamned pirogue! Honestly, we'll be lucky if he doesn't get pneumonia!"

As Drouillard shouted to the others, Lewis laughed softly. "I missed you, too."

"Oh, be quiet," Clark snapped at him. "You should never have -- I can't believe you spent the night in the bottom of the -- oh, hell, Merry," he said in a softer voice.

"I packed it with lint," Lewis offered. "I think it'll heal up all right."

Clark shook his head and didn't answer him. Drouillard returned with a buffalo robe and they slid it under Lewis, a half-dozen men reaching into the pirogue to take the sides of the blanket and lift him out. They staggered up the riverbank to the camp, depositing the wounded captain on a heap of buffalo robes in the teepee he shared with Clark, Drouillard, and the Charbonneaus.

Clark stripped him out of his wet things as swiftly as he dared, leaning out of the tent to shout for someone to bring him Captain Lewis' dry clothing, then turned his attention to the wound. "Hell, Merry," he muttered again. The bullet had taken a nasty gouge out of the other man's backside.

Sacagawea ducked into the teepee with a clean shirt and trousers, baby balanced on one hip, wincing when she saw Lewis' injury but unable to hold in a little grin. Lewis raised his eyebrows and gave her a pained smile. "It would be pretty funny if it didn't hurt so much," he said.

"Janey, would you bring me some water? Eau et -- Merry, what is the French for bowl?"

"Ah, bowl, I think," Lewis told him. "_Bassine_, maybe? I have no idea of the Hidatsa, so don't even ask."

Clark, shaking his head, made hand gestures which he hoped would convey his meaning. Sacagawea nodded and left, returning promptly with a kettleful of clear water. Clark thanked her distractedly and, wetting a bit of flannel, placed it on the blood-caked bandages. "I'm soaking this off."

Lewis craned his neck around. "I think I did a pretty good job with it. Considering I spent a couple hours running around looking for the 'war party' that attacked me and bleeding all over myself before we found Cruzatte and he owned up. Inasmuch as he owned up. Which is to say that he's still denying it."

Clark dropped to the robes beside him, burying his head in his hands. "You're joking. Tell me you're joking."

"No. Magnanimous in moments of extremity, yes. Joking, no."

Clark couldn't help laughing, very quietly so it didn't carry out of the tent. "He still says -- "

"He still says he never fired his gun."

"Dear Lord, Merry."

Lewis reached over, rested a hand on Clark's thigh. "I'm going to be fine, Will. I really am. Just -- " he hissed as Clark lifted the flannel and pulled the lint from the wound, "just be gentle."

"Of course," Clark murmured. "Of course."

 

_Ruptare, in the Lands of the Hidatsa: August 17, 1806_

 

"Ah! He's gotten so big!" Six Horses crowed, raising Jean-Baptiste high over her head. "Look at you!" she said to the baby.

Sacagawea grinned at her. "I'll be glad not to be carrying him so much, now we're back."

Six Horses shook her head. "I have to admit, when you left here and he was so tiny, I wasn't sure he'd make it. Not that I wanted to say anything. But just look at what a beautiful boy he is!" She set him on her hip. "I'm your other mother," she told him when he reached a pleading arm out to Sacagawea. "You're going to have to get used to me."

The village bustled with the arrival of the expedition. Bands of small children and dogs chased each other between the lodges; visitors from the other villages arrived in canoes and on foot to see the returned travelers; men unloaded the pirogues and canoes onto the riverbank so that the equipment of those who would remain at the Mandan and Hidatsa villages could be sorted from that of those who would continue to St. Louis.

"Come with me," Six Horses said to Sacagawea, "Owl Woman said we could rest at her lodge before we go on to Menetarre."

"Wait a moment," Sacagawea answered. "I have things coming out of the canoe, and farewells to make." She nodded toward the blanket where their husband sat smoking with Clark, Lewis, Jusseaume, and Black Cat.

Six Horses's eyebrows rose. "Oh, you do?"

"Yes," Sacagawea said, calmly. "Why don't you go ahead to Owl Woman's and show her the baby?"

The other woman raised an eyebrow at Sacagawea, but Jean-Baptiste chose that moment to hit her in the face with both his hands. "Eyah!" she exclaimed, "What are you doing, child?"

"Better to get him away from all this commotion," Sacagawea told her. "He'll be happier somewhere quiet."

Six Horses nodded. "Yes, yes, he will." With one last, somewhat disapproving look at Sacagawea, she boosted Jean-Baptiste up onto her hip and began making her way to Owl Woman's lodge.

Sacagawea, for her part, walked toward the smoking men. They rose, as she came up to the blanket, and Charbonneau said, irritably, in Hidatsa, "We to talk business, woman."

"I would like to make my farewells," she told him, in the same language. He frowned but made no response, and she turned to the captains. Mustering her limited English, she said, "Goodbye and thank you, Captain Lewis, Captain Clark," with a deep nod toward each man.

Lewis bowed back and murmured some polite response, but Clark took Jusseaume's arm and said something more lengthy to him, in English, something about telling her something, about a debt. Lewis, hearing him, frowned, as did the metis. Jusseaume questioned him, and Clark replied, and finally both men turned toward Sacagawea.

"He says," Jusseaume told her, slowly, in Hidatsa, "that he is mindful of the great services you have performed for the expedition. You and your son both. With the Shoshone, and translating, and guiding him through the plains. He says that he thinks the expedition would have come to grief many times if you had not been present. He says that he owes you great debts." He stopped and questioned Clark again, a disbelieving look on his face, and the captain replied almost angrily, in the affirmative.

The translator turned back to Sacagawea. "And he says that if you or the boy ever have need of his aid, he promises it to you. That if you are ever unable to care for the boy, he would be honored to take him into his own lodge."

Sacagawea couldn't control her surprised expression. She had known the captain was attached to the baby, but this was a generous offer. She considered carefully before she spoke, looking into Clark's eyes. "Tell him that -- that I appreciate his words, and will remember his promise."

Jusseaume translated her words to Clark, who smiled, then bowed to her. She returned the bow, and the smile, and then Charbonneau broke in with a sour, "Things you have to get from boat?"

She sighed, told him, "I will go and get our things from the pirogue, yes," turning away toward the riverbank. Clark caught her eye and winked at her, and she raised an eyebrow at him before resuming the placid, still expression with which she habitually greeted her husband's demands. What Clark had said was true, of course -- her presence, and that of the baby, had convinced the peoples whose lands they'd crossed that their party was peaceful, convinced them not to attack. But she hadn't been sure if either of the captains realized it.

Apparently at least one of them had.

 

_St. Louis, Missouri: September 24, 1806_

 

"You are drunk, Merry," Clark said, sounding gleeful.

Lewis just laughed in response. "I should hope so! Oh, dear Lord." He stumbled against the other man as they made their way down the street toward Chouteau's house, walking-stick hanging half-forgotten from one hand. "It's been how many months since we ran out of whiskey? I don't think I've gone this long without liquor since I was a child."

"Hah!" Clark leaned in to whisper, "I think I may be a little drunk too," in Lewis' ear.

"Why, Captain Clark! I would never have suspected!" Lewis exclaimed cheerfully. "I must thank you for trusting me with this confidence!"

Clark giggled helplessly at him. "We got home, Merry. We really did. We -- my God, Merry, we just -- "

"We just went to a very fancy dinner party," Lewis said, in as grave a voice as he could muster, given his level of intoxication. "Where a number of very nicely-dressed men said very complimentary things about what assets to the nation we are."

"Heroes of our country!" Clark crowed.

"Little do they know!" Lewis replied, tipping his new hat at the other man. "Oh, dear, Will, I really am completely non compos mentis, aren't I?"

"Indeed, my dear Captain Lewis." Clark put his arm around Lewis' shoulders, and Lewis leaned into him. He was still limping, his injury pulling at his steps, and it was hard to keep his balance. At least, that was what he would say, if anyone frowned at the sight of the two of them walking around St. Louis after midnight, drunk, with their arms around each other.

"It's as well I'm a hero of the republic," he murmured, fighting back laughter and the sudden urge to reach up and knock Clark's hat off. He put his arm around Clark's waist. "If I weren't, I might be assailed by brigands."

"Never! In the streets of St. Louis?"

"It is a matter of some concern," Lewis said with deliberate, slurred gravity, head half-tipping onto Clark's shoulder.

"Nah. We're, ah, heroic. We can take 'em." Clark looked at Lewis. "Actually, even this drunk -- and don't get me wrong, I am as drunk as I have ever been in all my life, Merry -- we could take on anyone."

"Just so," said Lewis contentedly. "Look, I think they've left the lights on for us."

They came up the stairs to Chouteau's in step, and an amused-looking manservant let them in and ushered them upstairs to their room.

 

_Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: July 15, 1807_

 

Lewis had claimed the summerhouse in the corner of his landlady's yard for his office, preferring the breeze outdoors to the stillness and heat of his upstairs rooms. It was one of those hazy, humid New England summer afternoons, the moist air holding the heat. The little table before him was covered with scraps of paper, a pair of account-books, and a small stack of official correspondence from the government's accountants in Washington.

Lewis leaned back on his bench, a paper fan in one hand and a glass of porter in the other. "I swear, it was less labor crossing the continent than dealing with these accounts," he told Dickerson as the other man came up the stairs into the shade. "And I think it took less time. Here, I've got this out from the root cellar, it's almost cold," he added, dropping his fan to pass the lawyer a bottle from the floor beside him.

And how, Lewis wondered, did they expect him to produce a receipt for the uniform coat he'd swapped the Clatsops for a canoe? He entertained himself a moment with the mental image of himself, in the black gorge of the Columbia, demanding signed paperwork from the natives. Preferably in duplicate. That would certainly have gone over well.

Dickerson unsealed the beer, pulled up a chair, and seated himself. He was in his shirtsleeves, dark hair loose, sweaty. Lewis watched as the other man took a couple of long pulls on the bottle, leaning back, then rested his beer on his thigh and looked to him. "Ah, you know how I hate this heat."

"They keeping you busy?"

Dickerson nodded. "And I've got to take Bartrand's deposition this week. I'm dreading it." He grimaced and wiped his forehead with the back of one hand.

"Well, the Philosophical Society meeting's on Friday, we've got that to look forward to. You can watch Barton lie to me again about all the useful work he's doing with my specimens. Do you know, I'm told he hasn't even opened the boxes yet?" Lewis sipped at his beer, frowned again at a line item, and finally dropped his pencil. "Oh, hell, I've entirely lost patience with this."

"Why doesn't Clark come up and help you with it?"

"Clark is -- " Lewis' voice cracked, and it was a moment before he resumed. "It's not his responsibility. Clark is otherwise occupied."

"Ah, yes. Occupied."

"Don't take that tone about it," Lewis snapped. "Yes, occupied. He's done exactly what I ought to do. What you should do, for that matter. We're all of us getting older. I'm sure she's a very nice girl."

"She's sixteen. Of course she's nice, she doesn't know any better."

Lewis couldn't disagree with this assessment, so he finished his drink instead. He'd been doing a lot of that lately, but what else was there to do, in heat like this?

"Very well," Dickerson said, finally, "you know I said I'd help you find some agreeable young thing, and I meant it. Though I'm damned if I see why you can't accept that you are, like me, what society politely refers to as a confirmed bachelor."

Lewis leaned forward, collected another bottle of porter, and poured it into his glass. "Because the governor of Louisiana can't be a confirmed bachelor, and you know it as well as I do."

"But you don't want to be the governor of Louisiana."

It was true, but that was no reason to say it. "It's a tremendous honor," Lewis said instead. "And you know Jefferson wants someone he can trust to replace General Wilkinson."

"Wilkinson may be the crookedest man I've ever met," Dickerson remarked. "And I say this as someone who's spent his life in politics."

Lewis hummed in agreement. Neither he nor the President were entirely sure about the extent of Wilkinson's involvement in Burr's conspiracy, but they were both sure he'd known more than he was admitting to them. There was no doubt that he could no longer serve as governor. Mind, it wouldn't do to discuss their qualms about the general, on the eve of Burr's treason trial. Not even with Dickerson. Not when Wilkinson was a star witness in the government's prosecution of the former vice president.

"But, you know," Dickerson leaned forward, "this is Jefferson's problem, and not yours."

And this was, of course, where they disagreed. Lewis put on a smile and said, "Come now, Mahlon, I can't help but be an improvement over Wilkinson. If nothing else, I think I can honestly promise not to put New Orleans under martial law."

"I don't doubt that. But I can't believe you're going to -- " He broke off. "It's your own business, of course."

"Yes. It is. And I would prefer to present no opportunity for scandal. Besides," Lewis said, taking a drink, "There must be some girl who will accept me. I am not really all that awful."

Dickerson sniffed. "Only when you're hunting for compliments. Here, pass me that," he said, gesturing at the larger of Lewis' account-books. "I'll check your figures."

 

_St. Louis, Missouri: October 12, 1808_

 

Clark pushed open the door to Lewis' office, not bothering to knock. He was in his shirtsleeves, a dressing-gown hanging from his shoulders.

"Good morning," Lewis greeted him. It wasn't unusual for Clark to be in his office early, but it was strange for him to be here half-dressed, forehead creased, looking distracted and unhappy. "Have you eaten already? Or can I offer you something? York's just brought me a fresh pot of coffee." He gestured toward it.

"No, no, I'll only be a moment." Clark ran a hand through his hair.

"Yes?"

"It's -- " Clark hesitated again, then pulled up the chair he was accustomed to use, a splay-backed affair, and sat down, resting his elbows on the stacks of paperwork lined up along the front edge of Lewis' desk. "Listen, Merry, you know Julia's expecting."

"Mm. It is hard to miss," he replied, with a little quirk of his eyebrows. "How is she feeling this morning?"

Clark shook his head. "I'm sure it will pass eventually. Good of you to ask. But, look. She thinks -- we think -- Merry, I must be frank, this house is too small for all of us." The words came out in a rush.

"Ah." Lewis took a deep breath, grasped his coffee cup with both hands, and sat back. "And you would like me to find other accommodations."

"Yes." Clark looked regretful. "You know that, were circumstances different, I would -- you know that I -- well. I hope that you will continue to take your meals here."

"Of course. Of course I will." Lewis swallowed, drank again. Never mind that he had rented the house in the first place; it would be unconscionable to ask a pregnant girl to relocate her household. Although he could probably insist. But he wasn't quite that much of an ass, and it would upset Will.

Clark rose, not meeting Lewis' eyes, and said, "It's very decent of you."

"Certainly. Don't let it concern you; this is just the natural progression of things." He even managed a little smile, though his fingers were tight around the cup.

"Thank you. I appreciate it. I really do," Clark said, quietly. "I'll, ah, let myself out."

"You always do," Lewis replied, and he was afraid that had sounded a little bitter, his best efforts notwithstanding. The door closed behind Clark's retreating form. Lewis looked around his office, at the papers awaiting his review, the stacks of boxes that held his notebooks and files and specimens, the maps tacked to the wall. Well. It was natural. And he had always enjoyed moving. It was just that it got harder, as he got older: so many more things to carry with him each time.

 

_St Louis, Missouri: June 5, 1809_

 

"Damn it, Merry, you will not," Clark snarled, bracing his hands on the arms of Lewis' armchair. "You are not going to challenge Bates." He hadn't believed it, when the servant had called him back to their host's darkened study, telling him Governor Lewis required his assistance with a matter of honor. He hadn't believed that, even drunk, Lewis would be this foolish. But obviously he was.

Lewis glared back at him. "He has cut me in public, Will."

"He is your secretary." He bit the words off. "You are not going to challenge your secretary to a duel in front of most of St. Louis. No, you goddamned well are not." He kept his voice low; he could hear the sounds of music and dancing clearly through the door, and he had no doubt that their voices, if raised, would be as audible to anyone outside in the passage.

"But he has -- " Lewis started.

"He has insulted both of us. He is an ass. And I don't doubt that he has been stirring up trouble. But listen to me, damn you -- " He leaned in. "I am not letting you do this. Understand?"

"And how are you going to stop me?" Lewis, voice rising, tried to stand, and Clark put a hand on his shoulder and shoved him back into his seat. The chair slid back a couple of inches with the force of it.

"Stop this! Someone will hear you," Clark hissed. "And I don't know which would be worse for your reputation, dueling Bates or rumors of a split between the two of us."

Lewis looked at him wild-eyed. "They -- oh, Will, you aren't -- "

Clark closed his eyes. "No, I am not. Though you tempt me! You are not twenty any longer, Merry. You can't go around challenging men because they don't agree with your politics. And you certainly can't challenge your goddamned secretary!"

"It's not like I employ the man personally," Lewis grumbled.

"He's under your authority!" Clark shook his head. "I can't believe you're arguing this." Lewis sucked in a breath, blew it out. Clark turned away from the chair, paced across the room and back, saying, "You are going to go make your farewells, and I will collect Julia, and we will take you home."

Lewis looked away. "Fine. Fine. We will do it your way." He rose slowly, tugging his waistcoat down. He looked, Clark thought, like a high-strung horse being led across a busy yard -- nothing but nerve and reaction.

He didn't blame Lewis, really; Bates' behavior had been appalling. His own initial reaction had been no less violent. But he'd controlled himself. Lewis hadn't. "Very well," Clark said, though of course it wasn't. He reached forward, opened the sitting room door, and ushered Lewis out, hissing, "With dignity, damn your eyes," into the other man's ear as he passed.

Lewis nodded angrily, then, straightening himself, mustered a pleasant, if rather fixed, half-smile, and they went to thank their hosts.

 

_St. Louis, Missouri: August 20, 1809_

 

It was after midnight when Clark arrived; Lewis had heard the big clock in the front hall chiming earlier, marking out its dozen. Clark looked bleary, as if he'd come from his bed. Which, Lewis thought, he probably had. He wondered who'd sent for him -- Chouteau? One of the servants? Probably Chouteau; even John wouldn't take it on himself to wake the general. Hah.

Clark dropped into his chair, next to Lewis' desk, and leaned forward. "Merry? Merry, I came as soon as -- I am -- I am so sorry. I hadn't thought it would come to this."

Lewis pushed himself up, bracing both hands on the edge of his desk to hold himself up. "He conspires to ruin both of us, Will, and Reuben as well. It is his fault, I am sure of it, that these damned accountants will not honor my drafts. As if I have ever defrauded the government!"

"He wants your position," the other man observed quietly.

"And what would he do with it?" Lewis rounded on him, demanding. "What would he do with the Blackfeet? With the Sioux? Bates knows nothing about how to treat with the Indians; he is a political man through and through. He is -- I know he was in league with Burr, but I cannot prove it. I cannot prove anything. They are revenging themselves on Jefferson, through me. Oh, hell," he said, his vigor leaving him suddenly, "I am lost, Will, we are lost, they are going to recall me to Washington and we are all lost, everything we have worked for these last years, all lost and it is all my fault." He collapsed back into his desk chair, reached for his decanter, and poured a couple of fingers of whiskey into a tumbler.

"Merry." Clark's voice was soft. Lewis didn't answer him. "Merry, you are worth six of Bates, and I know it. Everyone knows it. We are going to get your affairs in order and we are going to go up to Washington and we will settle this. He will not have you, not over this."

Lewis choked out a little half-laugh and swallowed the contents of his glass. "Then over what? What will he find next? Now it's the accounts. What will he seize upon next? The fur company? Or something else?"

Clark sighed. "Merry. I will, we will deal with Bates. But you are not in good health. And your habits are not making it any better."

"My habits? My habits? I have no habits any longer."

"You have been drinking too much, and these cures of yours -- "

"I am sick." He leaned his forehead against the desktop, the wood cool against his brow.

"I am not sure," Clark said, his tone even, "whether your cures are making you better or worse. I would like -- " and he held up a hand to forestall Lewis' outburst, "I would like for you, as a favor to me, to moderate your drinking. And I will help you get your papers in order, and we will go, we will both go, up to Washington, and we will settle this business with the accounts. And then you will go on to Philadelphia, and stay there a while, and work on getting the expedition journals published."

"What will happen here, then?"

He heard the other man's sigh. "Merry, you didn't want this job. And now you're willing to risk your health to hold it? Go to Washington, clear your name, resolve your finances, and tell Madison to find someone else."

"But what would you do?"

"I will work for someone else. I can, you know. Or I will take a more active hand in the fur company. Or Julia and I will go back to Virginia. I am not -- " he paused, "I am not without resources."

Without looking up, Lewis answered, "I am, though. I am entirely without resources."

Clark's hand fell on his shoulder. "You are not. That is a lie and you know it." He pulled Lewis back, looked into his eyes, and said, "Merry, you are drunk. I am going to have John put you to bed, and I am going to come back in the morning, and we are going to work on this. And between now and then you are not going to have anything more to drink, or any pills. Now, come along quietly or we'll wake the Chouteaus." He lifted Lewis out of his chair, put an arm around his shoulders, and, calling out for the servant, ushered him back to his bedroom. Lewis saw, disappointed, that Clark pocketed the bottle of laudanum on his nightstand before he left.

 

_On the Natchez Trace, Tennessee: October 10, 1809_

 

"They are all against me, you know," Lewis said to the fat woman, who fussed nervously with her knitting and didn't answer. "She wants me gone, she looks at me and he will never, he will never admit to anything, and the President is always writing me letters. Says he has great hopes. I haven't; I haven't got any hope of anything at all. Do you suppose they'll receive that well, when I get to Washington? Shall I call in my lawyer? Oh, he'd hate that. He's always hated that. Pretends he doesn't know, which is certainly a great and shameful lie." Lewis took his flask from the table and swallowed again. It took so much, to have any effect, it took so much to get him to a place where he wasn't worried about all of it any more. About his competence, or the lack thereof. About his utter unsuitability for this work. About the book, unwritten, hanging over his head like Sisyphus' boulder. About the money, and wasn't that a humiliating morass?

The corners of the room started moving on their own and he blinked to clear his vision. Maybe if he concentrated, very hard, they'd hold still. If he could just concentrate hard enough, everything would hold still. And then he'd be able to go around and fix it all, like he'd fix a compass, or a watch. It wasn't that he was bad at fixing things, it was just that there were so many things broken. He found his head tipping to one side as he stared at the corner, and that was all right. If he only had a pillow, he could lay his head over to the side and just sit and sit and listen to the little clicking noises the knitting needles made as the woman ticked back and forth, row after row. La tricoteuse! Let the blood flow, right out over the floor, and lap in little waves at her feet!

Had there ever been a time when this wasn't normal, this numb feeling at the center of his being, this lightness of mind, or was that the whiskey in him? Glorious, glorious. Which came first, the drink or the -- no, it wasn't just a habit. Might as well admit that. He laughed, startling the woman across the table, and he raised a hand to show her he hadn't meant anything by it.

"It is," he said, laughing again at himself, "it is a sweet evening, is it not? Balmy?" He reached into his coat, took out his little pipe, packed the tobacco in and lit it with a spill from the fire. "Do you know, I thought I heard him, coming up the road behind us? It wouldn't be the first time he's known when I needed him. When I was with the Shoshone I was so sure -- " He glanced over at the woman, who shook her head, frowning. Lewis stood, ready to leave her and her needles behind, pushing the door open and stepping down into the yard.

The trees were turning, yellow and red and orange, spinning all around the pair of grubby cabins and the barn that made up the little trailside hostelry as he tried and failed to focus his eyes. Once he would have contemplated sugars and the nature of plants, the vastness of creation, the great wheel of the seasons, the motions of time, but tonight all his knowledge oppressed him. Tonight the woods held no wonder.

"I truly thought I heard him," he whispered to the trees. Now he heard nothing. Lewis tapped his pipe out against the porch post and went back inside.

 

_Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: November 13, 1809_

 

Dickerson reached into his desk drawer, pulled out a pair of shears, and applied them to the newspaper before him. The clipping, when he'd finished, was headed, "Merriwether Lewis Notice of his death." It repeated the story Dickerson had read in Clark's letter of the week before, the reports that had first come to him three weeks earlier. The misfired guns and the long, slow bleeding out, the whole mess of it. How the best shot Dickerson had ever known could possibly have botched his own suicide, and so badly -- oh, it was foul to think about.

He tried to remember the man as he'd last seen him, the night before he'd left Philadelphia, but his mind wouldn't come together around it, kept juxtaposing blood and nightmares over the fondly-remembered form, stretched across his white sheets. Dickerson blinked hard and took a deep breath and told himself again that he couldn't have known. That it had been more than two years since Lewis left. That if he'd come north, as he'd promised in his letters --

Clark should have known. That much had been obvious from his letter. Clark knew full well he should never have let Lewis travel alone. Clark was -- oh, hell, Clark was as he had always been, about Lewis, at least so far as Dickerson could tell. And the letter had been painfully understanding. Almost sympathetic. Almost inviting Dickerson's -- what? Commiseration?

There was nothing new in the newspaper article but it seemed, somehow, more final. This was tidy, printed, summed up, totaled. Official. Dickerson set the shears down on top of the clipping, crumpled the sheet from which it had come, and threw that into the fire. The newsprint flared obligingly, hot and bright. He considered for a moment, then flipped Clark's letter into the flames as well. It took longer to burn.

 

_St. Louis, Missouri: December 15, 1810_

 

She was nervous, waiting there just inside the front door, but determined. Her hand lay on Jean-Baptiste's shoulder. It wouldn't do for him to fidget, not here. He had to make a good impression.

The housekeeper, a skeptical look on her face -- she obviously didn't approve of Indian women being shown into her master's office alone -- returned and said something in English. Sacagawea looked to her son.

"She says the general will see us now," he translated.

"Good. You thank her for me."

He did, and the servant nodded to Sacagawea in response, then led them down the hallway to a little room at the back of the house. It was small, lined with cabinets and shelves, crammed full of books and papers and the skeletons of small animals and oddly-colored rocks. Clark, seated at a desk in the center of the room, rose to greet her with the polite Hidatsa formula. "An honor to see you, madam."

"I am honored to see you, as well," she told him, in the same tongue.

Tacked to a slanted table behind him was a familiar map. She'd watched him drafting it, years ago now. She'd walked that map, recognized the course of the rivers, the angle of the ranges, knew that land and what was in it. Knew how to live on it, and off it. And that was a good knowledge, an important knowledge. But her son would need something more. He would need the kind of knowledge that Clark had. He would need to be able to pick up books like these, and read them; need to be able to make his own maps. And that wasn't anything she could teach. But it might be something she could bargain for.

Clark came around the desk and gestured that she should take one of the chairs before it; he seated himself in the other and said something to Jean-Baptiste about how big he was getting. Her son grinned proudly at the older man.

Sacagawea took a deep breath, turned to Jean-Baptiste. "Tell him, I have come to speak with him about the promise he made me, four years ago at Ruptare."

The boy repeated her words, stammering a bit when the general's eyebrows rose but continuing after a glance at his mother.

Clark settled back in his chair and seemed to hesitate before speaking. She got part of it, but not all, and looked to Jean-Baptiste. He told his mother, "He says he remembers."

"Then you tell him that your father wants to return to Menetarra this spring." The boy said it in English, then glanced at her. She took a deep breath, then said, "And that I want you to stay here, and go to school. At the church school. I want General Clark to see to the arrangements." This was the first time she'd said it aloud, that she didn't want Jean-Baptiste coming with them, and she could tell from the child's face that it came as a blow.

"But Mama, I want to be with you!"

She gave him a severe look. "Tell him what I said."

Clark, unable to follow their exchange, nonetheless reached out and rested a hand on Jean-Baptiste's shoulder, smiling at him encouragingly. Jean-Baptiste spoke to him in English at some length -- delivering her message, she hoped, though the boy spoke so rapidly it was hard for her to follow. Clark looked into Jean-Baptiste's face and asked him something, and the boy answered, a bit diffidently. Clark patted him on the back and said something else, in a jovial tone, about good boys.

"What does he say?" Sacagawea asked.

Jean-Baptiste turned to her. "He asked didn't I think I would like the school, and I said that I didn't know anything about schools and I would rather be with you. Then he said it is a very nice school with a lot of other boys who would be my friends. He said he thinks it is a good idea."

Looking up, she met Clark's eyes, and he nodded to her. He had a son himself, now. She thought he would understand.

Clark spoke again, in English, but addressing her, not the child, using her husband's name. Asking if Charbonneau knew something, she thought. She looked to Jean-Baptiste.

"He wants to know if my father asked us to come talk to him."

She shook her head.

Clark gave her a wry look and spoke again. Jean-Baptiste translated, "He says then we will tell him the school is his idea. The general's idea."

Sacagawea smiled broadly at Clark and nodded her agreement. He understood perfectly.

 

_St. Louis, Missouri: December 19, 1810_

 

Clark added the last label to the map, in the careful hand he used for all his lettering, and sat back, tipping his pen carefully onto his blotter. He stretched his neck and shoulders, then rose, stepping back so he could see it in its entirety.

The continent lay before him, its features described as well as he knew how. It was a large sheet, and there was no way the engraver would be able to fit the entire thing into the book. But it had mattered to him, to chart it all out like this. His work had been the measuring and the mapping. It was important that he should finish out his part.

Merry's share had been in the writing, the natural history, the preparation of specimens. And so much of it left undone, or fragmentary. He had sorted through Merry's trunks, through the files in his office, through the parcels he'd shipped to Jefferson or left in Philadelphia, winnowing the things from their voyage out from the detritus of the dead man's daily life. It had taken months. He found notes, specimens, drawings, even now, wrapping them up and mailing them off to Philadelphia for Biddle and Shannon to prepare for publication.

There were days he still felt angry. But he had largely mastered that. It was fruitless, being angry with Merry when there were so many other demands on his time. His work, and Julia, and the baby. His brothers. The men from the expedition, who still wrote him first when they ran into difficulties. And, for that matter, the woman from the expedition -- what a surprise that had been, finding her on his doorstep after so long. He would see her and the boy right, as he tried to see them all right.

In the morning, he would write to Biddle, attach the completed map and this month's foundling papers. He had done, now, all that he had agreed to, in that long-ago meeting with Merry on the banks of the Ohio, all that he had agreed would be his part.

There was more to do, of course. There would always be more to do and he would, as best he could, discharge his obligations.

He turned and, leaving his study, shut the door behind him. Julia was waiting upstairs, warm and sleepy and sweet, and he wanted nothing more, now, than to sink into their bed, into her arms, and rest.

 

_St. Louis, Missouri: March 30, 1811_

 

"Dear one," Sacagawea called to him, in the cradle-tongue, "dear one, come down here and sit with me and I'll tell you a story." The little boy turned, grinned at her, and trotted back down the hallway. She could hear the voices of the three men, Charbonneau, Clark, and the priest, discussing the arrangements for the boy's schooling. She and the child had been left to wait in the hallway. She leaned back against the wall and reached her arm out to her son. The hallway was considerably more pleasant than many places they'd sat, waiting, and she didn't mind it so much. Not like she minded going north again with Charbonneau and leaving her boy in St. Louis. She was not, she could not be, happy with this. But it was the best thing she could think to do. She would give him this, though it broke her heart to do it.

Jean-Baptiste climbed up on the bench next to her and settled against her body, a familiar warm weight, and she dropped her arm around him. "A story?" he asked.

"A story. Yes. This is a good story. This is a story about a little boy, just like you. A clever little boy." He wriggled a little and she gripped his shoulder. "Are you going to hold still, or do I not get to tell it?"

"I'll hold still."

"Good boy. Well, this is a story about a clever little boy. When he got to be old enough, he went out into the world all alone."

"With no mama?"

"That's right. He was big enough to go out with no mama. He was a very brave boy, and he went out all alone. And he went along and by and by it got to be getting dark and he was thinking about going to sleep. And he met a stranger, and the stranger said to him, well, there are bad men around here, you have got to be careful. So when it came time to sleep the boy remembered what he had been told and he found a little crevice in the rocks. And he took his arrows and he put them up like this," and she gestured with one hand, showed the boy putting the arrows in the ground, "with the points up. And you know what happened? While he was sleeping, some bad men came and thought they would take him away with them. And they went to do that thing and oh! See what happens? They get their hands and arms all cut up on the points of his arrows!"

The boy laughed along with her, face delighted. "And then what happens?"

"Well, then they go away, don't they? All cut up. And the next day the clever boy gets up, and he's going along, and he meets a stranger who warns him that there are a lot of snakes going to be in his path. So what do you think he does? He takes sharp flints, and he ties them to his feet, and he can walk all over and the snakes can't bite him because he steps on them with his sharp feet."

"He kicks them!" Jean-Baptiste kicked at the air in front of him, first one foot and then the other.

"Yes, he does that exactly. He kicks them with his sharp flint feet. And then he's going along and he meets a stranger who says that he should be careful, because up ahead there's a place with a bad tree. And what do you think he does?"

"He kicks it! He kicks it a lot!"

"Well, not exactly. He takes his blanket, and he throws that down under the tree, and what happens? That bad tree falls right down onto his blanket and it's all broken up. So it can't fall on him and hurt him. He knows how to do this, you see? Because he remembers what he's been taught. So the tree falls down and it's all broken, and he takes up his blanket and keeps on going."

"The tree just fell down?"

"Well, only when he threw his blanket under it."

"Oh, all right."

"And then he's going along and going along, and by and by he comes to a lodge. And he sees that there are two old women at the lodge. They're cooking up some good food, and it's been a long time since he's had something hot to eat, so he wants to eat some of what they have. But he's afraid because he knows that they could be bad women. So he asks a stranger, are these bad women, and the stranger says yes, they will want to eat you up, put you in their pot!" She pinched her son and he giggled. "Well, he doesn't want to get eaten up, so he's going down to that lodge and he calls out to them that he'll be coming in. But instead of going in to that place himself, he reaches in with his blanket over his arm, and the bad women, they are standing one on either side of the door, and they think that's him! So they strike out with their knives and hit that blanket, and they kill each other!"

"Oh! Oh, instead of hitting him they hit each other!"

"That's right. And what does the clever boy do?" She paused for a moment but he just looked up at her. "Well, he goes and takes their pot off the fire and he helps himself to what was inside it, and very good it is, too."

"What happens to his blanket?"

"I think he must take that with him when he goes on, don't you? Such a good blanket, he wouldn't just leave it there. He takes it with him and he just goes on, going up and down."

She finished and they were quiet together for a moment. Jean-Baptiste scuffed one small shoe along the floorboards, then buried his face in her side. Sacagawea ruffled a hand in his hair. "You're a good boy, dear one."

There was a shuffling and the office door beside them opened. Clark stuck his head out, looked up and down the hall, and smiled when he saw her. "Janey," he said, then, in Hidatsa, "Boy to come now here for to see."

She smiled at him and helped Jean-Baptiste to his feet. "Go along, now, dear one. You're my good strong clever boy, and you're going to go along just fine." Her son sniffed, looked up at her, wiped his nose on the back of one small hand, and when she pushed him forward, he went through the door Clark held open.

 

[Annotated Bibliography](http://circadienne.dreamwidth.org/1156.html)


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